…getting my thoughts down in a post about my reading. This last week has been so ‘sun up’ to ‘sun down’ busy that getting the extra moments to write even a BITE was a challenge. I was in Silicon Valley presenting for 2 days to a very important demanding customer (they should be demanding, they are spending a lot of money 🙂 ). The prep work for that meeting was weeks in advance and it is good to have it out of the way and back into a sane schedule.
BELLA UPDATE: As you likely know, Bella is 2 weeks into her 9-month gap year missions’ trip to 4 countries (Cambodia, Thailand, South Africa, and Guatemala). These first 6 weeks are training in GA sleeping in tents and ‘bucket showers’. Rain has been upon them for the last several days and that has been a new challenge. Bella is doing awesome and was even picked for a key role on the team. She is doing great and growing ever closer to the Lord. So proud of her.
...there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away! Luke 15:7 [NLT]
I love this line of teaching by Jesus to the Pharisees. They were criticizing Him over the time he spends with sinners, tax collectors, and the like. This is one of those passages that I think is an interesting perspective for someone like me who is both in vocational work in the secular world yet also in a leadership role at church. At church I minister to pastors and saints as well as striving to win lost souls…but my day job is living amongst the sinners and desiring to be salt and light to a dark world. There is so much hurt, pain, confusion, and fear in a Godless society and I find myself in place of pastoral care over people serving God full time and living a testimony and witness to win the lost.
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? Luke 15:8 [NLT[
Jesus uses a second illustration of woman who loses just one of her ten silver coins. The thing that jumps out at me in this parable is the fact that all the coins are assumed to be equal in value.
Application:
I think I can have a tendency to see Jesus followers as more protectable and serving them as a higher calling…but with the 10 silver coins, if all of the 10 silver coins are equal in worth, then I must see the soul of each person I come in contact with (no matter their debauchery or world view) just as worthy of my time in investment as one of my life group members. If I am being honest, this is still sinking in a bit.