Luke 15:8

New International Version 

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

For Meditation

Three Parables, one message – Jesus seeks out the lost sinner to be reconciled to God and brought into His Kingdom (Lk. 15:1-32). That’s why He came into the world.

In the second of the three Parables, a woman lost one of her ten silver coins (Lk. 15:8-10). She lit a lamp and searched the entire room until she found it. It is interesting why she needed a lamp for her search. Silver could be picked up very easily out of anywhere because of its color. The fact that the woman needed a lamp means the room was too dark for the silver coin to be seen. A light bright enough to dispel the darkness had to fill the room for the silver coin to be seen and brought back into her treasury. The coin was important enough to deserve all the recovery effort.

The Parable reveals the situation of the sinner – the coin. Separated from God and lost eternally if not found, God has launched a search and rescue operation in His world. Because of the darkness that has engulfed the world; the sinner cannot find his way back to God on his own. That is the reason why we need Christ Jesus. He is, “the light of all mankind” (Jn. 1:4); and while in the world, “the light of the world” (9:5).

However, now that Jesus has ascended into heaven, He has made His disciples, the “light of the world” (Matt. 5:14). The Parable of the Lost Coin pictures God shining His light through us in Christ and holding us around the world, searching for the lost sinner. What a privilege to be used by God to light our environment with the life of Christ, in search of His lost “silver coin.”

1. Are you shining brightly enough for God to find the sinner to rescue? What a challenge!
2. Is your light revealing Christ to those around you that they may come to Him?
3. As the hymn writer counsels, do you trim your lamp enough for the light to shine brighter wherever God takes you?
4. Do you allow God to take you where He wants you; shining in the obscure corner where one sinner may be perched?
5. How can you not be motivated by the angelic jubilation in heaven over the sinner your lamp may bring home into the Kingdom of God (Lk. 15:10)?

I pray you allow Christ to shine through you by living above the ordinary and in pursuit of holiness.That way, the people in the darkness “may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16).

So: May you shed the old habits and engage the new life in Christ; and may the Lord draw many onto Himself by the light you shed along the way.

Your life is in God’s hands as a searchlight for the sinner around you.

Shalom

 

Let the Lower Lights be Burning

1. Brightly beams our Father’s mercy,
   From His lighthouse evermore,
   But to us He gives the keeping
   Of the lights along the shore.
   • Refrain:
     Let the lower lights be burning!
     Send a gleam across the wave!
     Some poor , fainting struggling seaman
     You may rescue, you may save.
2. Dark the night of sin has settled,
   Loud the angry billows roar;
   Eager eyes are watching, longing,
   For the lights along the shore.
3. Trim your feeble lamp, my brother;
   Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,
   Trying now to make the harbor,
   In the darkness may be lost.

Philip P. Bliss