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A Different Pew, A Deeper Faith
Photograph by Daniel Gomez / Unsplash I am sitting in a back pew of my new Read More
Felicia Howell LaBoy | Read Luke 15:1-7
In an era in which we’re told that we should not pursue perfection but progress, it seems like overkill to risk ninety-nine sheep for just one. I mean, the rest could wander off while the shepherd is searching. Worse still, this passage tells us that the shepherd has left them...
God, make us secure enough to join you in seeking and ministering to those who can’t cry out and who need just a bit more. Amen.
Jeremiah’s warning of coming judgment continues. The children of Israel have become foolish, have ignored God, and have become good mainly at doing evil. God is going to respond to this situation. The psalmist describes the state of all who are foolish: They deny God and follow their own corrupt desires, including oppressing the poor. The author of First Timothy, traditionally Paul, says that this was also his former way of life. He has been foolish and ignorant, a persecutor of the followers of Christ. In fact, he had been the worst of all sinners; yet Christ has shown him mercy, not judgment. Jesus tells two parables to reveal God’s heart. Rather than neglecting the ignorant, the foolish, and the lost, God searches to find each one of us.
• Read Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28. How do your actions show others that you know God?
• Read Psalm 14. When have you, like the psalmist, felt that no one knows God? How did you have faith that God would restore God’s people?
• Read 1 Timothy 1:12-17. Recall a time when you felt unworthy of Christ’s full acceptance. How has that experience made you more grateful for Christ’s mercy?
• Read Luke 15:1-10. In a world full of death and violence, how do you rejoice when God finds one lost person?
Respond by posting a prayer.
