Luke 15:3. Then Jesus told them this parable: 4. "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5. And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6. and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' 7.I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. (Jesus speaking in red)
I wanted to share a “rejoicing” story with you that I heard yesterday in church. We had a baptism service yesterday and one of them was for a little girl, who was about 7 years old. When people are baptized at my church, they write a small testimony telling of their journey to accepting Jesus. Someone reads it before the person is baptized. This little girl wrote about how she wanted Jesus and everyone else to know how much she loved Jesus. How simple, but yet how amazing that is. It reminded me of that child like faith we talked about earlier. Basically that is what it boils down to, this walk of faith we are on, just loving Jesus and wanting others to know and have what we have in Jesus. How do we make it so complicated the older we get? It just seemed so simple in that little girl’s words.
Our pastor talked about this little girl also before he baptized her. He said that when she was about 5 years old she told her mom she wanted to get signed up for church. In her young mind, since all her activities she was involved in required “signing up”, that was all she knew what to call going to church. Her family did not go to church before that. So her mom started looking for a church and found ours. In that two years time this little girl’s mom, dad, aunt, grandpa, and the little girl have all been saved. It was just such a cool moment spiritually, each of those people were there to see this little girl be baptized; and stood proudly as the pastor spoke of each one.
What rejoicing must have been going on in Heaven over these 5 souls saved; and it all started from a 5 year old little girl who wanted to “sign up” for church. God uses everyone!!!!
And on a personal note for me that made this special is that my son was there with me, watching all this and hearing what all this meant. I was not only thanking God for these souls that were saved, but I was also thanking Him for loving my son and for the hope He gives me that enabled me that morning to say to God “one day, Lord, one day that will be my son”. Then later in the day God answered another prayer of mine-concerning my son going to Mexico with the youth group. I had been praying that if it was God’s will then somehow He was going to have to give my son the desire to go. Well, last night Jackson made the decision to go to Mexico. Don’t you just love when we SEE God?
“Now faith is bring sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1
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