This morning, we continue our series on “The Parables of Jesus.” We will seek to glean “Pearls from the Parables.”
Before we get to the parable, let’s look at a scripture we have been looking at all year. This is something I believe the Lord wants us to meditate on.
(Psalm 126:4 TPT)
Now, Lord, do it again! Restore us to our former glory! May streams of your refreshing flow over us until our dry hearts are drenched again.
This is a season of refreshing and restoring for us.
Today we will look at the Parable of the Lost Sheep. This is found in two places in the Bible.
Matthew’s account: (Matthew 18:12-14 ERV)
“If a man has 100 sheep, but one of the sheep is lost, what will he do? He will leave the other 99 sheep on the hill and go look for the lost sheep. Right? And if he finds the lost sheep, he is happier about that one sheep than about the 99 sheep that were never lost. I can assure you, in the same way your Father in heaven does not want any of these little children to be lost.
Luke’s account: (Luke 15:3-7 ERV)
Then Jesus told them this story: “Suppose one of you has 100 sheep, but one of them gets lost. What will you do? You will leave the other 99 sheep there in the field and go out and look for the lost sheep. You will continue to search for it until you find it. And when you find it, you will be very happy. You will carry it home, go to your friends and neighbors, and say to them, ‘Be happy with me because I found my lost sheep!’ In the same way, I tell you, heaven is a happy place when one sinner decides to change. There is more joy for that one sinner than for 99 good people who don’t need to change.
So, what does this mean to you today? A few things.
1. God is a good God Shepherd!
In the Parable of the Lost Sheep, we witness a profound illustration of God’s nature, not as a stern deity waiting to punish but as a loving Shepherd actively seeking to restore and bless His flock. I want you to know that God’s pursuit of you is driven by His desire to bless you, not to get you!
— God actively seeks us out like the Shepherd in the parable who leaves the ninety-nine to find the one lost sheep. His pursuit is relentless and filled with hope; God is looking for restoration, not for retribution, for blessing, not cursing.
— Some paint the picture of God as this entity that will get you if you don’t do everything right. This breeds a religious mindset that sees God as a deity that is disconnected from us and one who is out to get us if we mess up. But this is not God’s heart at all. This parable reveals God’s true character. He is not lurking in the shadows to catch us in wrongdoing; instead, He is the loving Father, eagerly waiting to embrace us.
— First of all, if God wanted to get you, there is nowhere you could hide. David said, “If I made my bed in hell, even there, God could find me.” It’s not about God’s ability to find us in our darkest moments to punish us. It’s about God’s unyielding commitment to be with us, to bring us back into His loving presence.
— The heart of God is not to ‘get us’ but to ‘bless us’ with His love and grace. His actions are not of a judge seeking to penalize but a Shepherd longing to protect, nurture, and enrich our lives. Religious people don’t get this.
— Understanding this aspect of God’s nature is crucial. Our perspective shifts when we realize that God’s pursuit is out of love and His desire to bless us. We move from fear to faith, from apprehension to acceptance of His amazing grace.
— In God’s pursuit, there is safety and assurance. The realization that even if we stray, God intends to bring us back into the fold with love and blessings, not retribution, transforms our relationship with Him. No longer will we serve God out of fear (the fear of going to hell). We will serve God simply because we love Him, and our hearts will be fueled by the fact that He loved us first!
— This point invites us to reevaluate our understanding of God. It’s a call to see Him as the Shepherd who seeks, the Father who restores, and the God who blesses abundantly. It’s an encouragement to step into His loving embrace, knowing His pursuit is for our ultimate good and joy.
2. It takes the Holy Spirit to comprehend how high, wide, and deep God’s love is.
— God’s love for you is far deeper than your human capacity to comprehend. Love is something humans practice. God doesn’t practice love; He IS love. It takes the Holy Spirit for us to get a revelation of God’s love.
— God’s grace is so amazing that you could not even love God without it. You are only able to love because He first loved you.
— God’s love for you is truly unconditional. Your love for God was birthed out of the good things He has done for you. But His love for you was birthed out of His goodness and grace, and it has nothing to do with what you do for Him. God started loving you before the world began.
— God is not mad at you. He is not out to get you. If God wanted to get you, there would be no place you could hide. He is seeking you out but not to hurt you. He is chasing after you to bless you because He loves you.
— You will have a hard time believing and receiving all the good things God wants to do in, with, and through you by grace if you fail to embrace His love. And to do so, you must open your heart to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
— What God wants to do for you by grace (completely unmerited, unearned, and undeserved) is almost too good to believe, but you can believe it when you come to the understanding that God wants to bless you simply because He loves you.
— When you accept and believe the love of God by the Holy Spirit, your faith walk will go to an entirely new level. Most believers attempt to live by faith based on their perception of how good they are being towards God. This means that if they feel like they are doing pretty good, God will answer their prayers and respond to their faith. However, that is not the message of the New Testament at all. That is performance-based religion and not the grace-based relationship God wants to have with you.
— When you understand the message of the New Testament, you embrace the grace of God because God loves you. When you are convinced God loves you, your faith will be strong because your faith will be rooted in God’s love and His grace towards you and not in your goodness towards Him! At this point, Paul says, “Then, by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you, and the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life.” (Ephesians 3:17 TPT)
— For Christ to be “released deep inside of you,” Paul says that you must constantly use your faith. In Paul’s letter to the believers in Galatia, Paul taught us that “faith works by love” (Galatians 5:6). Therefore, if you don’t live by faith, you won’t receive the fulness of Christ in you, and if you don’t get a revelation of God’s love, you will never live by faith because faith works by love. It all boils down to God’s love. You must get a revelation of God’s love to the point where you are so convinced that He loves you that you will do, by faith, whatever He leads you to do, even when you have no sense-realm evidence to support it.
— Paul says, “the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life.” When you get a revelation of God’s love towards you, and you learn to REST IN IT, the love of God will be the source of your strength and the root of your life.
3. Your faith will not be strong until you are fully persuaded of God’s love for you!
— If you don’t acknowledge and embrace the Love of God towards you, your faith will not work because you will inevitably make a mistake. You are human and flawed. You are not perfect. When you make a mistake, satan will tell you that you have disqualified yourself from what God promised. If you believe satan, you will cross over into condemnation and no longer believe God for the manifestation of His best. However, if you are convinced that God loves you and that He knew you were going to make a mistake before He gave you the promise, and He promised it to you anyway, you will press forward by faith. Because at that point, your faith is fueled by God’s love and grace. Wouldn’t it be crazy for the lost sheep to think he cannot return to the Shepherd just because he was foolish enough to go astray? That is exactly the type of condemnation satan keeps many believers in because they fail to rest in God’s love and grace.
— For years, I thought Galatians 5:6 meant that my faith would work when I loved God and other people. Based on my thinking back then, if I did not operate in love towards God or others, my faith would fail. Thinking this way put pressure on me to perform, do things right, and love both God and man because I feared that my faith would not work if I did not. However, the entire letter to the church in Galatia compares human effort (the Law) with God’s effort (Grace). So, in context, Paul is not putting a requirement on you — to make sure your upward love towards God and outward love towards man is perfect — before your faith will work. That would be inconsistent/incongruent with the intent of the overall letter. Paul’s emphasis is on God and not us. Therefore, Paul must mean that faith works when we are convinced that God loves us!
— I remember thinking, “If I don’t love others the right way it is going to stop my faith. Because Paul said that faith works by love.” When I thought this way, the pressure was on me to perform. The pressure was on me to do everything right and to treat everyone right. Now, I am not saying that we can treat others badly. That’s not what I am saying at all. My point is that Paul was not putting pressure on us to love to enable our faith. Paul told us that our faith would be strong when we know God loves us, not the other way around!
— Your faith will be strong when you are convinced that God loves you and that He wants to use you by His Grace, not because you are so good. If you bring over a performance-based religious mindset to the life of faith. It is not going to work because every time your performance does not measure up, you will mentally disqualify yourself and disengage your faith. If you understand what Paul is teaching in Galatians, you will realize that you are no longer under The Law, that your performance does not dictate God’s goodness towards you, and that your faith will only be strong when you are convinced that God loves you. God wants to bless you, not because you are good, but because He is!
— If you base your faith on your performance, your faith will never be strong because your humanity is flawed. But if you base your faith on God’s love and His unyielding commitment to you, your faith will be strong because God’s love towards you never fails.
— God’s motivation to bless you and use you supernaturally is His love, not your faith. What caused God to make plans for you, to seek you out, to save you, and to then use you for His glory is His LOVE and GRACE, not your faith or perfection. If you ever want to be used supernaturally, you must get to the point where you embrace God’s love, accept His grace, and pursue whatever He tells you to do, no matter how big it may be, by faith because you know He loves you.
Declaration of Faith:
Father, this is a season of refreshing and restoring for me!
I declare that I am deeply loved by You, not because of my actions, but because of Your unearned grace.
I believe and embrace that You are a good Shepherd, seeking me out to bless and restore, not to punish or curse.
I open my heart to Your revelation, knowing that Your love is the source of my strength and the root of my life.
I am fully persuaded of Your love for me, Father. This assurance fuels my faith, making it strong and unshakeable.
I reject the lies of condemnation and embrace Your grace, knowing that You have plans for me, plans birthed out of Your love and goodness.
I am convinced that You want to use me for Your glory, not because of my worthiness, but because of Your unconditional love.
My faith is rooted in Your love, and through this faith, I will see the manifestation of Your promises in my life.
Living with this mindset, I know GREATER IS COMING FOR ME! I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
This is Today’s Word. Apply it and prosper!
