It’s Personal

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:10

This short yet profound sentence is the closing statement of the story of Zaccheus and today I’d like to dissect it. First I’d like to start with the words “the lost”.  Now we may picture here the sheep that strayed, the one that seems too far gone, the prodigal son, etc. but I want you to open your mind to other images to see how this applies to all of us... Some other translations of this verse into English translate it to “That which was lost”. So if you or someone you love are the strayed sheep, the one that seems unsaveable, the Zaccheus, this definitely applies to you, but also, if you don’t necessarily relate to these characters, don’t tune out, this still applies to you too, because I bet you, you have something inside of you that you’ve lost and would like to recover. I bet if you looked deep enough, you’d find something that God would deem worth uncovering, “that which was lost” if you will... a piece of your heart you’ve neglected or a part of your faith you’ve questioned that God is calling you to look deeper into.

So now that we know this applies to all of us, let’s look into what is meant by “to seek and to save”. Personally I used to struggle with finding places to meet and reconnect with God during the times in my life when I’ve strayed from Him, feeling like I needed to carve out time to meditate on a mountaintop or go on a mission trip or something big and extravagant. And these thoughts always prolonged my time of distance from the Lord because I was like, “Wow, I don’t have time to do something big like that.” This was when I read an article that challenged me to take a look at the stories in the Bible where Jesus meets people... the article suggested that in the majority of cases, Jesus met and sought out people while they were doing their everyday type things. Some examples include the call of the disciples- most He sought out when they were at work; the woman at the well, she was just doing her chores; even Mary Magdalene whom He appeared to after His Resurrection was just there initially to do the task of prepping His body for burial. Jesus was and still is seeking us out in the midst of our every day responsibilities.

Not only does He seek us, but He wants to save us and save what has been lost in us. And how did He save us? By dying for us of course. He died for me personally, me Lauren Palm, and you personally, you reading this right now. It’s not a general, vague, “oh He died on a cross 2000 years ago to save the lost”… no it’s personal, He died to save you in the present day. It’s so personal in fact that I’d like to leave you with this visual… it’s as if you show up at the entrance of the Pearly Gates after a long and happy life and the Devil shows up and grabs you and tries to steal you away, but Jesus runs out and sacrifices Himself in YOUR place to save YOU. And He would do this over and over again if He had to. Whether you are lost or you have something which has been lost, take a deep breath, you don’t need to do anything major right now, just keep showing up in your everyday life… Jesus will seek you there, and when He does, all you have to do is crack open the door of your heart, He has already done the heavy lifting. You are loved and already, you are saved.