How think you? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, does he not leave the ninety and nine, and goes into the mountains, and seeks that which is gone astray?

– Matthew 18:12

Thoughts on Today’s Verse…

I feel warmth in my heart each time I read this verse. God compares everyone as a sheep, if one of us is lost, He will leave the ninety-nine to seek the lost one. God doesn’t have the heart to forsake anyone, from which I see God’s deep love to us humans. I could only understand this before, but a passage of God’s words tell me that this metaphor contains a deeper level of God’s will.
God’s words say, “When God became flesh, when He appeared in the form of a man, He used a very appropriate metaphor to express the voice of His heart in humanity. This voice represented God’s own voice and the work He wanted to do in that age. It also represented an attitude that God had toward people in the Age of Grace. Looking from the perspective of God’s attitude toward people, He compared each person to a sheep. If a sheep is lost, He will do whatever it takes to find it. This represents a principle of God’s work among mankind this time in the flesh. God used this parable to describe His resolve and attitude in that work. This was the advantage of God becoming flesh: He could take advantage of mankind’s knowledge and use human language to speak to people, to express His will. He explained or ‘translated’ to man His profound, divine language that people struggled to understand in human language, in a human way. This helped people understand His will and know what He wanted to do. He could also have conversations with people from the human perspective, using human language, and communicate with people in a way they understood. He could even speak and work using human language and knowledge so that people could feel God’s kindness and closeness, so that they could see His heart. What do you see in this? That there is no prohibitiveness in God’s words and actions? The way people see it, there’s no way that God could use human knowledge, language, or ways of speaking to talk about what God Himself wanted to say, the work He wanted to do, or to express His own will; this is erroneous thinking. God used this type of metaphor so that people could feel the realness and the sincerity of God, and see His attitude toward people during that time period. This parable awakened people from a dream who had been living under the law for a long time, and it also inspired generation after generation of people living in the Age of Grace. By reading the passage of this parable, people know God’s sincerity in saving mankind and understand mankind’s weight in His heart.” From this I saw the importance of the work of God incarnate. He uses the language of man to express His will and demands. This is more beneficial for us humans to understand and accept the truth. The work of God incarnate is indeed full of His good intentions.