God Looking for Sinners
by Dr. Paul Chappell
“And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?”
Luke 15:3–4
In 1987, Joy White took her infant daughter, Carlina, to the hospital in New York City because the child was running a fever. To her horror, someone snatched the baby girl from her hospital bed, and she disappeared. Police were unable to identify any suspects, and the case was never closed. But Joy White believed that her daughter was still alive. Twenty-three years passed, but she never gave up hope. Then in 2011, she received a call from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children with the amazing news that her daughter had been found. The mother’s love in her heart never failed, and her long search was finally rewarded.
All of us are born sinners apart from God, and we have no hope of rescuing ourselves. But in His boundless love and mercy, our Heavenly Father did not wait for us to seek Him—He sent His son to seek for us. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:14–15).
The world likes to think that people are fine just as they are, but the Bible teaches that all of us are in desperate need of a Saviour. The reality is that we don’t look for Him. “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God” (Romans 3:10–11). He must seek for us, that is exactly what Jesus did.
Luke 15:3–4
In 1987, Joy White took her infant daughter, Carlina, to the hospital in New York City because the child was running a fever. To her horror, someone snatched the baby girl from her hospital bed, and she disappeared. Police were unable to identify any suspects, and the case was never closed. But Joy White believed that her daughter was still alive. Twenty-three years passed, but she never gave up hope. Then in 2011, she received a call from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children with the amazing news that her daughter had been found. The mother’s love in her heart never failed, and her long search was finally rewarded.
All of us are born sinners apart from God, and we have no hope of rescuing ourselves. But in His boundless love and mercy, our Heavenly Father did not wait for us to seek Him—He sent His son to seek for us. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:14–15).
The world likes to think that people are fine just as they are, but the Bible teaches that all of us are in desperate need of a Saviour. The reality is that we don’t look for Him. “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God” (Romans 3:10–11). He must seek for us, that is exactly what Jesus did.
Today’s Growth Principle:
The measure of God’s love for us is found in the fact that Jesus left Heaven to seek and to save us.
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