Looking for Lost Life

I have found that it is easy, in this world, to catch sight of only the corrosion.  The gold is gone.  The creation is corrupted and undiscernable.  I have found that it is easy to dismiss the corroded coins.  There is not much to look at that has any resemblance to it’s Maker.  The muck and mire of defiled centuries arouses our hearts to concern very little.  It is unsightly, ghastly, a disfigured disgrace.  Our looking into the matter of corrupted creation may only invoke the pain of lost treasure in our own being.  There is nothing good to see; nothing pleasant to look at… .so we look away…

Our eyes, our hearts, our hands become more occupied with temporary, yet lovely things.  Why waste a day of needed welfare over a ruined, fallen, defiled, sin-stained humanity?  Why look into the matter?  We have discovered treasure somewhere else.  I have found that this is easy to do.  It is easy to look away.  It is easy to busy my heart with other things and ignore the simpering groan of a fading existence.  “…where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” Matthew 6:21.  And I have to wonder: is my heart really in this gospel from God?  Have the lives wrought with so much value before God become of any value in my own evaluation?  I have often found that the creational corrosion averts me.  Poverty, helplessness and homelessness may play upon my heart stings and beckon a response, but the raw sinfulness of my neighbor and my enemy disgusts me and it is all too easy to dismiss their lost life.  I, perhaps, have missed a calling so profound and sincere.  I can help the poor but can I love my enemies?  Though I hate their sinfulness, can I love their lives enough to effect a deliverance?  Can I perceive their value and deep need for sanctification?  Could I die for their opportunity to live?  Am I one in heart with the Seeker of human lives?  He who looks intently for hearts and minds buried beneath years of corrosion?  

This gospel goes beyond feeding corroded flesh.  This gospel seeks to save lost coins.  It searches to discover unknown value and God ordained worth.  Every coin has its origins in the hands of its Maker.  Do I really know this… .all the way from my dearest companions to my darkest enemies?  Have I discovered, in them, an opportunity to revive and sanctify lost life?  Have I considered their creational groaning?

It is not always easy.  It is far easier to catch sight of their corrosion.  Therefore, I wonder, have I really seen?  Have we walked about with eyes open?  Are we looking for lost life?

Questions that beg our response…. .my response.

“For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost,” Luke 19:10.