The Lost and Found
READ: Luke 19:1-10
Many of us can think of times in our childhood when we have been especially bad and have gotten into fights with our parents. The child feels that he or she has been treated wrongly and will want to get back at the parents. One thing many children do to rebel or show anger is to run away. Usually at a young age the child doesn’t get very far. They might get a few blocks away, but soon they get scared or lose their stubbornness and return home. The child runs home to worried parents and open arms, and the problem is resolved.
Our spiritual lives as teenagers are the same way. We might be committing major sins against God over and over again. We tell ourselves that we will stop, that the next time will be the last time. The guilt and sin can pile up so much that we might feel we can’t change and that we can’t be forgiven. We run farther and farther away from God until we lose sight of Him. We must guard against this attitude.
In Luke 19, we learn about the tax collector Zacchaeus who had been cheating people all his life. He was the head of many tax collectors and had become rich because he stole from the prospering people. However, when he saw Jesus, he repented in a second and vowed to repay everyone four times what he had taken. Jesus did not reject him or rebuke him. Instead, Jesus welcomed him with open arms as a true son of Abraham, not by lineage, but by faith.
Whenever we feel we have sinned and strayed too far from God to be found, we need to remember the words of Luke 19:10, “For the son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
THINGS TO THINK ABOUT: How can we guard against the feeling that we can’t be forgiven? What things has God given us to know when we have sinned? What things has God given us to assure us that we are forgiven?
PRAYER SUGGESTIONS: Thank God for His open arms to run to when we are lost. Ask God for the ability to admit when we sin and ask forgiveness.