one sinner.

"I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance." Luke 15:7

Jesus is looking for sinners.

How else would He have found you?

Selah.

I was talking to Mercedes after service, and she said, “Even if one person reads your post, you don’t know the impact it could’ve had on that person”.

I took a nap, woke up, and this verse was heavy on my heart.

Luke 15:6–7 (NKJV)

⁶And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’

⁷I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.

Our work is so catered to the 99 that it’s hard to imagine how else it should look.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the numbers game:

• How many people attended the church service?

• How many views did we get on a post?

Meanwhile, the registry of Heaven does not consider just saints, but also the sinners who repented.

So if we evaluate our programs, shouldn’t it be based not just on how many people came, but how many people repented?

Repentance is so important that Jesus’ first messages in ministry were teaching people to REPENT.

Mark 1:14–15 (NKJV)

¹⁴Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,

¹⁵and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Matthew 4:17 (NKJV)

¹⁷From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

I hope I’m not boring you, because this is exciting stuff.

Jesus saw humanity heading down a path of destruction, knowing that HELL was the only inheritance for them, needed to preach a message that would save a people, and folded it into one word, REPENT.

The Gospel is full of many other teachings of Jesus, but there is a foundation that they all point to. The precipice of everything that we read in the Gospels is on the condition that we are a repentant people, that we have turned away from the world and are looking towards the kingdom of heaven.

In theory, the number of people who need to hear this message should decrease over time. Everyone will have had an opportunity to hear the Gospel at the time of the Lord’s return, so an evangelistic ministry needs to be deadset on one equation.

One Savior + One Sinner = One Salvation

I don’t like sharing things like this, but I want to share a comment from someone on YouTube.

This brought me so much joy. Because I know the road to heaven is paved with the bricks of repentance.

May we always leave the 99 to find the 1. When we’re whole, we can rejoice, we can celebrate. But if one of us is lost, we must be deadset on reconciling them.

It’s so easy to focus on the masses, the normal churchgoers.

Let’s bring Heaven MORE joy.

Let’s never shy away from the message of the Gospel and Repentance.

Peace be with you!