February 26, 2019 – Luke 15:5-6

And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.”
—Luke 15:5–6

Heaven is a home.27 Don’t you like to think of it under that aspect? It is the home of Jesus, and if it is the home of Jesus, can any other home be equal to it?
Note that lost ones are known in heaven. I give you that thought more from the Greek than from the English here. “When he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep—the lost one.’ ” That is how it should run. It is as if the friends knew that one had been lost, and the loss had been deplored. Up there they know which are Christ’s sheep and which are lost. Heaven is nearer earth than some of us dream. And there are more communications between earth and heaven than some folk dream, for here it is clear that when the shepherd came home he said to them, “I have found the sheep, the lost one.” So they knew all about it.
Notice, next, that repentance is regarded as coming home. This sheep was not in heaven. No, but as soon as it had been brought into the fold it is described as repenting, and Jesus and the angels rejoice over it. If a person truly repents, and Christ saves that individual, it is clear that he or she never will be lost. A certain old proverb forbids us to count our chickens until they are hatched, and I do not think that angels would do so in the case of immortal souls. If they believed that repenting sinners might afterward be lost, they would not ring the marriage bells just yet, but they would wait a while to see how things went on. If converts can yet perish there is not one that the angels dare rejoice over, for if any child of God might fall away and perish, why not every one of us? If anyone falls from grace, I fear I shall.
I believe that where the Lord begins the good work of grace he will carry it on and perfect it: “My sheep listen to my voice.… I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” Now, if they have eternal life, it cannot come to an end, for eternal life is eternal, evidently; if they have eternal life, the Shepherd and his friends may justifiably sing. Sing away, angels!
—C. H. Spurgeon