At this point in the day in The River, we had been feasting together on the Word of God and were planning on reading Matthew 18:10-35. We were ready to continue and pick up where we had left off when a lot of people began coming in need of cold water and wanting a cup of coffee, so that delayed our continuing the reading of the scriptures.
We didn’t realize until later that the Holy Spirit delayed the scripture reading for His purpose…..
The people were coming in thirsty and with hunger. We invited all of them to stay and to let us pray for them, which they did. Just as we were finishing up praying together, another guest came in who was also hot and thirsty, named James. This was his first visit to Deep Passion. We offered a seat to him and while he was drinking a bottle of cold water and cooling down, Linda read Matthew 18:12-14 out loud. Everyone was following along in the Bibles we provide in The River.
"If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won't he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn't wander away! In the same way, it is not my heavenly Father's will that even one of these little ones should perish.”
Matthew 18:12-14 NLT
James slowly re-read the above passage aloud, and then with outstretched, raised arms he proclaimed that he was the lost sheep! The Holy Spirit had suddenly revealed this to him…. that he was lost but now was found by his Shepherd Jesus, his Savior! Paul confirmed this with him; then we all joyfully celebrated this message of revelation with James and praised God!