May 08, 2015

Lost and Found

I’d written an editorial and accidently put it in the wrong computer file folder. When I then tried to drag it to the correct folder it disappeared. I searched everywhere and finally called my daughter for help. Leslie suggested we do a video chat on our cell phones which would allow me to point the camera at my computer and she could look at my files in real time. However, nothing she suggested worked. I’d given up all hope and knew I’d have to reconstruct the document when Bill started poking around on my computer and found it in an obscure folder with an extension on the original file name. I immediately put on the persona of the woman in the parable of the lost coin and called my family to rejoice with me in finding the lost document. I now have a new found appreciation for heavenly rejoicing. Jesus said, “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).

1 comment:

Steve Corey said...

Gail;

-----Luke 15:10 says something to the “everything is about Jesus” crowd. Everything is about Jesus, but not in the sense some bring with it. We do “surrender all” in approaching the Lord and live out many other delightful cliché’s, but not quite like they sound.
------Jesus died for me personally. He took my very own, personally performed, individualized sins onto Himself and He approached me, individually, through His Holy Spirit. He did the same just as personally with everyone else who knows Him. The fact that He died for every one does not make it like He died for all of us in general, though it appears that way. When we first come to the cross for new life it seems we come to wash in the generally flowing blood. But being God, when the sins of the world descended upon Him, when He became those sins, God knowing every thought of every heart, He knew my sins personally and specifically by knowing my thoughts personally and specifically. All of them. Even those I have not yet committed. And He forgives them specifically. If our spiritual eyesight were like our physical eyesight, I bet we would see every individual sin we’ve committed tacked to the cross with its own tack covered by a sticky-note written with God’s upbuilding, refreshing thought in regards to forgiving it. No detail is too small for His attention.
-----Think about perfection. Absolutely every particle of all reality down to its very last bit needs to be in its proper place at the proper time for its proper reason and purpose for everything to be perfect. And God’s eternity will be entirely perfect throughout its infinity. And the more infinite it is the more importance rides upon any one of all the particles existing to be specifically what it needs to be where it needs to be. No wonder the angels rejoice at one lost soul being found! It takes only one out of place to make imperfection. Witness Lucifer and what has transpired since the very first detail of his error. So, every particle is as important for the perfection of God’s place as are all of them together. That’s a lot of importance for a little particle. “To him who conquers I will give…a white stone, with a new name written on the stone which no one knows except him who receives it.” (Rev 2:17) One soul. That important. A name only he knows.
-----This in no way detracts from focus on Christ. Jesus is the way, the life, and the truth. The presence of the definite articles means He is all of the way, all of the life, and all of the truth, not just some of it. Therefore, however we do anything in that new life in that new place of perfection in His Holy Heaven will be done in Him because He is any way anything there is done that is done. Living there will be living in Christ. He is the life. And everything we know there will be known in Him with perfect accuracy because He is truth. Although Christ is all things, there is no generalization about Him, because He is every detail of everything, since details are things. This is why we can get as intimate with Him as our desires to do so are true. And both sides of any intimacy share all of the importance surrounding the point of that intimacy. We are truly joined with God. Then what can we say big enough? It will take eternity to fully express.

Love you all,
Steve Corey