just a little of what the Lord has been teaching me lately…
you know those words or phrases that you hear often enough to be familiar with it, but if someone were to ask you the definition of the word or what exactly that phrase meant, you wouldn’t even know what to say? here’s a little story about one of those in my own life.
back in the fall of last year, i kept hearing the phrase “leave the 99” in a biblical context. i heard it in a few sermons, in scripture, and the night that i was like ALLLLRIIIIGHT what does this mean was at a bethel concert in north charleston. cory asbury debuted his new song that everyone now loves, called reckless love (if you haven’t heard it, check it out here). the line in the chorus that i’m referring to goes like this:
“…oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God
oh, it chases me down, fights til i’m found, leaves the ninety-nine…”
i absolutely fell in love with that song (before it was popular, i might add *wink*) and was then even more interested in the scriptural context and biblical meaning of this leaving the ninety-nine thing.
so i looked it up, and here’s what i found:
in luke 15, you find the parable of the lost sheep. many people know this story. a shepherd has one hundred sheep, and realizes that one of them is missing. so he goes out and searches for his one lost sheep. he could have easily just said “oh forget it, it’s only one sheep, i’ve got 99 more”. but he seeks out the ONE lost sheep.
i had heard this story before, but i hadn’t quite let it sink it the way i could have or should have until i was interested in what it meant…
it kept appearing, in different scenarios throughout the fall and winter. at one point, i was so overwhelmed by it, that i had to share with someone what the Spirit was teaching me (i didn’t have this cool blog yet lol). so i made a post on instagram about what it meant to me at the time. (find that here)
coincidentally (jk, there’s no such thing as coincidence when you serve a God as big as ours AYOOOO), my pastor spoke on luke 15 this past sunday. (it was an impromptu, spur of the moment, totally spirit-lead sermon, which made it even cooler). he made a point that the shepherd could have been frustrated with that one lost sheep and said “ugh! you stupid sheep. why did you leave and make me come find you!” but he didn’t…he picks the sheep up, embraces him with kindness, and carries him over his shoulders until they are back with the rest of the herd.
just as Jesus does for us…
we are absolutely never ever too far away from God that He decides to not come after us. as reckless love mentions, “there’s no shadow you won’t light up, mountain you won’t climb up…there’s no wall you won’t kick down, lie you won’t tear down, comin’ after me”. there is nothing that the Lord wouldn’t do to come after us. there is nothing that we can do to make the Lord not want to come after us. there is no way for us to be so far from God that he says “nah, it’s okay, they’ll be fine without me”. NO! he wants us! he will chase us and he will pursue us until he has our hearts. and when he does, he will embrace us, and carry us to where we need to be.
how. overwhelmingly. encouraging. is. that. (!!!!!!!)
i pondered more on this phrase after it popped up in the sermon and resurfaced in my mind a little mind from this past fall.
you know how things can mean one thing to you during one season in your life, and another thing to you in another season of life?
well here’s what leaving the ninety-nine means to me now:
i am going to be the one that leaves the ninety-nine. i am currently surrounded by believers and people to sharpen me and i sharpen them, as i am preparing for this journey on the race. but once i depart, i will be leaving the ninety-nine, in a whole new sense.
stay with me here. this is where it gets good.
ive decided that maybe my mission in life is to leave the ninety-nine. i want to leave the people that i know are believers and know Jesus, and i want to seek out the lost ones. it doesn’t matter how many people do know Christ, what matters is how many people don’t. as long as there is one lost person, we as disciples still have a job to do.
leaving for the race makes this come to life for me. we will be seeking the lost. seeking the broken. loving the unloved. being the literal hands and feet of Jesus. we are leaving our comfort zone, leaving the ones we know are already living in Truth, so that we can be the light of Jesus and find the lost souls.
this came over me as i was laying in my hammock on sunday afternoon after church, and i was amazed. i’m amazed at the way the Lord uses things over and over again to show us who we are, and what we can do through knowing Him and listening to the Spirit.
as Bob Goff has said “we become in our life what we do with our love”
and friends, Love is leading me to love the multitudes of this world.
blessings and fist bumps.
-mags
