Scripture

“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety–nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost?

~Matthew 18:12, NLT

Quote

God has a tender regard for each living soul and is infinitely willing to promote their welfare.

~Henry Scougal

I read about five devotions each morning and yesterday, the outstanding one was by a local pastor, Mark Milwee. Mark serves the Mount View Baptist Church at Cato. I think he has written a couple of devotionals. Based on the text above and the story of the lost sheep in Luke 15, Mark says that everyone is worthy of being found. The emphasis of the story in Luke 15 is on ONE: one lost sheep, one lost coin and one lost son. Every sheep is important to the shepherd. If one doesn’t show up, he goes out and searches for it. I grew up on a very small farm. I don’t think we ever had more than a dozen cows but we always had some. My daddy was not a good farmer {Row Cropper} but he did have the heart of a shepherd and he cared about his cows. There were times when mother accused him of loving the cows more than he did us. I don’t think he had them all named but he knew exactly how many he had and if one was missing, he picked up on quickly. One of my jobs was to feed them and count them because daddy didn’t always get home before dark. He would asks me as soon as he got in, “Where all the cows up when you fed them?” I would say “yes, I think so.” He would get up and go see for himself and if one was missing, the search was on. It may help you to understand, we had very bad fences and our cows got out all the time. Trust me, I have been out looking for cows in the middle of the night.

When you live in a world with 7 billion other humans, you get to wondering, what is one person worth? According to God’s word, one person is of infinite worth. Jesus said in Matthew’s gospel, What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows. If you were to get lost today and not show up at home tonight; would someone come looking for you? For most of us, the answer is yes and for this we should be thankful. Understand however, there are people who no one cares for and if they were lost, no one would miss them. It is not the case with Jesus; He cares for everyone. To me, this is the heart of the gospel. With the Marxist, black lives matter, with the Calvinist, some lives matter but with Jesus, all lives matter.

Extra

The sun is beaming down today. It looks and feels good. I have enjoyed this weeks weather. Thank You Jesus for the sunshine of your goodness and grace. My neighbor is still critical. I will be going over in a few minutes. Pray for God to use me. My sweet wife got me relieved from one of my predicaments yesterday so I was not gone all day and got to study a lot. I am thankful. Didn’t make it out to the POINT to check on the progress but LW I am headed that way today. Ty plays at Wallace State this evening at 4:30. They play a very good team from Winfield. We are the underdog.

Have a great day and thanks for reading the blog.