Thursday, May 1, 2008

Leaving the 99


In Luke 15:4, Jesus says, “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?” (NKJV).  I often think of this Parable of the Lost Sheep when I am on a plane leaving the continental United States.  Our nation is quite blessed in many ways; one of which is our freedom of religion.  One would be very hard-pressed to find a city in America that does not have at least one church, a few Christian residents, and access to the Gospel through other media, such as television, radio, the Internet, or books.

There are billions in this world without Christ, however, a great percentage of them must be found.  Just as Jesus alludes to searching for the one lost sheep, we as Christians are mandated to leave the ninety-nine, and go after the one.


Our latest INFUSION ADVENTURE team has just returned from Guatemala, and we literally had to search for “the one.”  Using 4x4 trucks to navigate through the Guatemalan mountains, we reached two different villages that had no food (we brought thousands of pounds of food to distribute), and very little exposure to the Gospel.  While we were there, we preached on the roadsides, and many villagers responded to our altar calls.  We prayed for the sick, handed out Bibles, and some said the prayer of salvation for the first time.  A village with no church, no Gospel media, no electricity, water, vehicles, or even food, now have some Bibles, food, and born-again Christians.