Verse of the Day Devotion:  Luke 15:10

“In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” – Luke 15:10

This verse is a beautiful picture of how God reacts when anyone repents and becomes saved.  He starts this with a short story of a woman who loses a coin.  “Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?  When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!” Luke 15:8-9.  Now, this is not much money, even at the time of this writing.  The conversion of these ten silver coins were around thirty-seven cents in today’s dollars.  This was not much but it was all she had.  So it was that she lost one-tenth of the money she had, and so she spent time lighting a lamp and searching for it.  When she found it she rejoiced greatly because this was a great portion of what money she had.  This was such a joyous time she invited her friends to celebrate with her. 

This story is very familiar to what is found in a similar set of passages just above this story.  “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!” Luke 15:4-6. 

Now in both stories, we find the same basic statement telling us what this means in our focus verse.  “In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  Luke 15:10.  When we truly gave our lives to Christ, there was a great celebration in heaven.  Just as the man who found the lost sheep, and the woman who found the lost coin, there is a great celebration in heaven over a lost soul that has been found. 

It is a principle of human nature that the “recovery” of an object in danger of being lost, affords much more intense joy than the quiet “possession” of many that are safe. This our Savior illustrated by the case of the lost sheep and of the piece of silver. It might also be illustrated by many other things. Thus we rejoice most in our health when we recover from a dangerous disease; we rejoice over a child rescued from danger or disease more than over those who are in health or safety. We rejoice that property is saved from destruction by fire or the tempest more than over much more that has not been in danger. This feeling our Lord represents as existing in heaven. “Likewise,” in like manner, or on the same principle, there is joy.

And this is a result of the great love God has for all of us. He wants us to come to Him, and will go after us to make it happen, but ultimately it is our choice. When we turn from our wicked ways and life by giving it to God because the penalty of our sins is paid for by the death of Christ on the cross, this is a time of great celebration in heaven.  We do not celebrate when something that we find is not loved; often we are glad to lose it.  So it is in heaven, when our soul was saved by our accepting this new life, the celebration is because a life that God loves came to salvation and now will live forever with Him.  This is how much we mean to God.

William Funkhouser MDiv, ThD, Founder and President of True Devotion Ministries.