| Amazing Grace, Part 6 |
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| Written by David Lawrence |
| Monday, March 19 2007 00:00 |
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“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found….” John Newton came to realize what it was to be lost. In the midst of the wild partying of the Greyhound ship’s crew, John Newton was not a happy man; he was a lost man. Jesus said that he had come to seek and save that which was lost (Luke 19:10). Jesus came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. 15:24). Many of Jesus’ parables dealt with the idea of being lost –no longer being in the possession of the owner. In Luke fifteen he taught of the lost sheep, how one sheep from a flock of one hundred wandered away, and the shepherd left the ninety-nine and sought the one lost sheep until he found it. A woman lost one of ten coins, and she swept the house until she found it. A man lost one of his two sons to profligate living, and he rejoiced greatly when his son who was lost was found. All of us have at one time or another felt the panic of realizing that we were lost. Children experience it when they are separated from a parent in a shopping mall. We have felt it when trying to find our way through streets with which we are not familiar when we suddenly realize that we have no idea where we are. People have wandered off trails in a forest and become lost. Airplane pilots can have it happen when they lose sight of the horizon. Walking through an unfamiliar city, trying to find your car in a parking garage, getting confused underground in a maze of subway tunnels – it’s always a scary sensation. Sometimes we have to wait until we are found, because we realize that there is simply no way we can find our way out by ourselves. Such is the way with sin. It does such a number on us that we are truly lost. We cannot find our way back to God because we do not know or understand the way. What is even worse, the truly lost do not even understand that they are lost. The realization of being lost, frightening though it is, is a sign of the working of the Holy Spirit within us convicting us of sin and shining the light of the gospel in our dark hearts to show us the way to God. |
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