GEOFFSHATTOCKweekly

Advent 3 God So Loved: The Pursuer

Dec
16

2019

Issue 633

Have you ever heard someone say, “The older I get the more I become aware of my own failing”? When I was much younger, I had the privilege of knowing many older, wiser, and more mature men and women. I often heard them say those words but was uneasy about hearing them. I used to think; why dwell on your failures? or; surely, as you grow, you should be failing less.

But as the years pass, I find myself agreeing with them. At the same time, I feel more deeply the love of God who pursues me even as I fail.

So, the Son of Christmas tells us how much God so loves you in a series of stories about being lost and being pursued. He speaks of a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep in open country to go after one who is lost. He speaks of a woman who turns her home upside down to find one lost coin. He speaks of a father who saw his lost son and literally ran down the path to embrace him.

God’s love comes after you, turns things upside down to find you, runs to embrace you. God’s love longs for you. The older I get the more I feel the depth of being lost and the power of being found. You might find it interesting to see that the sheep got lost through ignorance, the coin by accident and the son by choice.

Can you also see that Christmas itself is God making a journey to you not just across open country but crossing a universe, not turning a house but his cosmos upside down, running, not down a path, but descending a stairway from heaven to rescue, find and to hold you. Such is his love.

Work well today,

Geoff Shattock

BIBLE SECTIONS

Luke 15:4
⁴ “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?

Luke 15:8
⁸ “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins[a] and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?

Luke 15:20
²⁰ So he got up and went to his father. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

Series: Advent
Module: 1
Season:
Daily Guide: No

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Work well
Geoff Shattock

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