Song suggestion of the week: Reckless Love by Cory Asbury

Matthew 18:12-14

"What do you think? If someone has 100 sheep, and one of them goes astray, won't he leave the 99 on the hillside and go and search for the stray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over that sheep more than over the 99 that did not go astray. In the same way, it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones perish."

A while ago, when the song Reckless Love debuted, I immediately loved it. But I was confused what the phrase "leaves the 99" meant in the chorus. So, the good old internet pointed me to Matthew 18:12, and wow was it powerful.

You see, our Lord loves you more than you could ever know. We are His children! What a cool father we have. He is so gracious and merciful towards us. The vastness of God's never-ending love and mercy towards us should give us an overwhelming and partially inadequate feeling. God is compassionate and He overflows us with love and forgiveness. God’s love and mercy for us is far greater than all of our sins.

With this being said, our Father loves us all; He doesn’t want any of us to be lost, in danger or alone. Because of His sea of love, He is willing to risk the 99 to find the 1.

But why? This doesn’t make sense? Any sensible shepherd would forget and move on from the one lost sheep.

But, He doesn’t want to lose any children.

The lost sheep represents a child of God, who is lost, feels alone, or has a shaken faith. He won’t stop until He rescues you. We want and love Him, but He wants and loves us more than our minds can bare.

Our Lord’s Parable of the Lost Sheep represents the essence of perfect, overwhelming love by our God. He desires all those whom He has called to enter His kingdom.

We are chosen. He chose us before we did anything good. In Reckless Love by Cory Asbury, the first sentence is, “Before I spoke a word, you were singing over me.” This represents that He has already chosen us, despite the sin and brokenness we contain.

The chorus exemplifies the perfect, overwhelming love of God showed in Matthew 18:12.

“Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending reckless love of God. Oh, it chases me down, fights ‘till I’m found, leaves the 99. I couldn’t earn it, I don’t deserve it, still You give Yourself away. Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.”

God is love. It is His essence, it is who He is.

Now, if we know the love of our Lord, we know how to love others. We can show this by our actions. It is not “here is something to do,” rather, “here is something to be.” If we want to imitate His love, we need to get better at it. And to get better at love, we need to know that we are loved. We don’t need affirmation or something from others to feel loved. We have to know with every ounce of ourselves, that no matter what, we are loved. We are, after all, an extension of His love.

Despite your shaken faith, if you are alone, or if you have wandered off, God loves you. He would drop everything for you. He would leave the 99.