Rejoicing in Heaven

Chuckle: Another excuse for an accident: "An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car and vanished."

Quote: "You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." --C. S. Lewis

REJOICING IN HEAVEN: (Luke 15:8-10)

"In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents" (Luke 15:10 NIV).

If you have ever doubted God's love and concern for you, these words of Jesus should dispel such doubts. Here, Jesus uses a parable to teach His followers how important each eternal soul is to our Lord. A woman possessed ten silver coins and she lost one of them. She did everything in her power to locate the lost coin, and when she found it, she rejoiced and asked her neighbors to rejoice with her because that which was lost had been found.

At the time of Jesus ministry on earth, it was the custom to give Palestinian women ten silver coins as a wedding gift. To lose a single coin was much more alarming than that which was warranted by only its monetary value. These coins were precious for their sentimental value, and to lose one was extremely distressing.

Each individual is more precious to God than we can comprehend. He grieves over the loss of even one eternal soul and likewise He rejoices whenever one of His children is found and brought into His kingdom. Jesus used the rejoicing of a woman who found her coin to teach His followers (us) about the importance of a single soul to the God of the universe. How does it make you feel to know how much God loves you and how important your eternal destiny is to Him.

Christ's love and compassion for people is revealed in His words to an unrepentant Jerusalem. "O Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!" (Luke 13:34 NIV).

"This is how God showed his love among us; He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him" (I John 4:9 NIV). "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd" (Matthew 9:36 NIV).

Wow! Can't you sense the love Jesus has for each and every person? That love includes you! No one is outside God's circle of love. When we begin to comprehend God's love, it makes complete sense that there would be rejoicing among the angels in God's presence when you gave your heart to Christ -- when that which was lost was found.

“Several years ago one of the astronauts who walked on the moon was interviewed and asked, ‘What do you think about as you stood on the moon and looked back at the earth?’ ‘The astronaut replied, ‘I remembered how the spacecraft was built by the lowest bidder.’“ --Illustrations for Biblical Preaching; Edited by Michael P. Green

We Christians have every reason to rejoice with the angels in heaven when the work of salvation has been completed in a person’s life and performed by God, the only bidder, and He did so without error or deficiency.

Love, Jerry & Dotse