One of the most significant sayings that really hit’s God’s kingdom bullseye is “God always counts by ‘1’s.’” God loves the 99 but left everything for the 1. His compassion and desire to touch the lonely, the least, and the lost is what sets Him apart from any other human being pointing to the compassionate character of our God. I love Psalm 34:18, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” I am afraid that most of our churches count by 5’s, 10’s, 100’s and even 1000’s not by 1’s. Why? These folks are usually complicated and end up taking too much of our time before they heal. Yet, when you observe Jesus’ ministry, time after time he sought after the one…whether He was healing the cripple even when it was controversial, an aggressive blind man, ten lepers with only one coming back to share his gratefulness, the chronically sick lady who had bleeding issues for years, demon possessed folks and on-and-on we can go. These people were a-beat-down yet Jesus proactively loved and healed them. A question that I want to challenge each of us is, do we limit our ministry to individuals that “get to it quickly” and not the troubled?
Let’s take a look at the heart of Jesus. Matt 18:12-13 declares, 12 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. It is the one who wandered off, the prodigal that He went after. What a celebration occurred when the lost was found.
Let me switch the plot a bit here. You, the reader, may be currently the “1” who has wandered off. Please look at the value that Christ puts on one soul including yours in Matthew 16:26. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? Jesus says gaining the whole world is not of the same value as one soul…your soul!
Quoting Matt. 18:13, “he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.” Jesus always counts by “1’s.”
Barnabas Man 