I Am Because You Are August 19, 2025 Devotional

LUKE 15:3-6 | ³ So he told them this parable: ⁴ “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? ⁵ And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. ⁶ And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.’

The Jesus we meet in the Gospels is a sublime teacher, His insights are profound, and the range and art of His communication are breathtaking. He taught “with authority” but managed to both entrance the young and uneducated, and amaze the scholars. Using ordinary language drawn from common life, parables, and original stories, He brought the world into the classroom. But perhaps the best feature of His teaching was the way He embodied His ideas, extending the classroom into the world.

This is visible in His distinctive portrayal of God as a seeker after the lost, an active agent determined to find the wandering, confused, and struggling. People are met and engaged in their need, not simply acknowledged in their sufficiency. Jesus embodies this in our account in John 4. His presence in Samaria is a form of unexpected seeking, amplified by His decision to engage with a woman who was an outsider even within her already alienated community.

How are you imitating this aspect of God’s character? Whom are you seeking?

Gracious God,

Activate me. Help me see those who are confused, lost, or simply living as strangers to the truth. Show me how to seek, to find, and to bring home.

Amen.