Rescue the Perishing

Daily Reading: Proverbs 24

Scripture Focus:  Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work? (Proverbs 24.11-12)

Devotional Thought: How involved are we in the rescue of the lost?  Perhaps the question should be how much do we love the lost?  One young teenager wrote this on their youth group Facebook page:

"John 3.16 is one of those verses that most of us could quote all day because it is used so often. I was really thinking about it the other day though. Sometimes when you hear something so often it just becomes a memorized statement… In John 3.16 it says 'For God so LOVED the world..' When I really think about that, it astonishes me. God loved the world that much. A place full of hate, evil, and people that betray Him. That didn't change His mind. In fact He did that not only for the people that love Him in return, but for the people that have betrayed Him. God wants us to show them His love through our love so that they may ask for forgiveness and turn their life to God. So that then they can show others compassion and love that know no compassion and love...just as 'God so loved the world.'" (Katie Mounts)

I could not have said it better.

God loved the world too much to sit idly by and watch people sentence themselves to hell.  So he did something about it.  He sent a Rescuer: Jesus Christ.  Are we willing to be sent as was Jesus?  Let us consider once again the words of that old hymn:

Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave; Weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen, Tell them of Jesus, the mighty to save. Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save. ~Fanny Crosby

Prayer: Lord, in the busy pace of my life I often lose sight of the fact that people are lost and dying - away from you. Spur my mind to remember their plight, O God, and help me to do my part to rescue the perishing!  Amen.

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 14.4-7

4 Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the LORD?

5 There they are in great terror, for God is with the generation of the righteous.

6 You would shame the plans of the poor, but the LORD is his refuge.

7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.