![]() ![]() God values us and hopes that we can turn to Him and come before Him to worship Him. But by giving this example, the Lord Jesus did not that He preferred the lost sheep to the ninety and nine that did not go astray, but expressed His love and expectation of mankind. ![]() When a person strays far from God, God’s intention in wanting to find him is the same as the man’s intention in looking for the lost sheep when this person is recovered and returns to God again, God feels the joy which is like that of the man finding his lost sheep. He could even speak and work using human language and knowledge so that people could feel God’s kindness and closeness, so that they could see His heart.”įrom the word of God, I understood that through the parable, “a man seeks the lost sheep,” the Lord Jesus used the example that we can understand to describe God’s eager desire to save people, so that we can experience God’s sincere feelings of wanting mankind to be able to return to the proper path after going astray. He could also have conversations with people from the human perspective, using human language, and communicate with people in a way they understood. This helped people understand His will and know what He wanted to do. He explained or ‘translated’ to man His profound, divine language that people struggled to understand in human language, in a human way. This was the advantage of God becoming flesh: He could take advantage of mankind’s knowledge and use human language to speak to people, and to express His will. God used this parable to describe His resolve and attitude in that work. This represented a principle of God’s work at that time among mankind, when He was in the flesh. ![]() If a sheep was lost, He would do whatever it took to find it. Looking from the perspective of God’s attitude toward people, He compared each person to a sheep. It also represented an attitude that God had toward people in the Age of Grace. This voice represented God’s own voice and the work He wanted to do in that age. When God became flesh, when He appeared in the form of a man, He used a very appropriate parable that came from His own humanity, in order to express the voice of His heart. If God had said something similar in the Age of Law, people would have felt that such words were not truly consistent with who God was, but when the Son of man delivered these words in the Age of Grace, it felt comforting, warm, and intimate to people. “ This passage is a parable-what kind of feeling does it give to people? The way of expression-the parable-used here is a figure of speech in human language, and as such it belongs within the scope of human knowledge. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. God’s word says: “ How think you? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, does he not leave the ninety and nine, and goes into the mountains, and seeks that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, truly I say to you, he rejoices more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Until one day when I saw the word of God on a gospel website I understood the profound meaning within it and gained a greater knowledge of God’s desire to save mankind. In the past, I only had these understandings of this parable. God compared Himself to the shepherd, every true believer in Him the sheep, through which He told us that He won’t leave anyone as long as they are the sheep that belong to Him. For thousands of years, God has always been looking for those who worship Him and belong to Him, and at the same time redeeming those who believe in Him but are distant from Him. Instead, He hopes that we can worship Him and live under His blessings and promise. From these verses, I understood that God doesn’t want to have any of us be tempted by Satan and thus keep far from Him, indulge in the pursuit of money, fame and gain, covet worldly things and carnal pleasure, and no longer have any place for God in our hearts. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish” (Mat 18:12–14), I feel very moved in my heart. Whenever reading these lines of Scripture: “ How think you? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, does he not leave the ninety and nine, and goes into the mountains, and seeks that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, truly I say to you, he rejoices more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. ![]()
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