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August 3 Daily Devotional

Seek Thy Servant

Frans Bakker

I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant. —Psalm 119:176

Bible Reading

Psalm 119:169–176

Devotional

“I have gone astray.” The wanderer explains that he has lost his way and cannot find his way back again. He compares himself to a sheep that has strayed from the flock. He acknowledges his spiritual need to the good Shepherd. “Seek thy servant.”

When a dog loses its way, it can often still find its way back again, but a sheep is unable to do this. If a sheep has lost its way and is not found by others, that sheep will be lost. He is able to lose his way, but he is unable to find it back again. The poet of Psalm 119 sees himself as a lost sheep and cries out to the Shepherd, “Seek Thy servant.” If the heavenly Shepherd does not seek His sheep, he will surely perish. He can lose his way, but he cannot find his way back again. He is able to fall down, but he cannot get up again. He can break something to pieces, but he cannot put it together again. He can tear something apart, but he cannot bind it together again. The sheep needs a loving guide, a protector.

What is salvation other than God in love seeking His lost sheep? This is true when the Shepherd first finds the lost sheep. It is still true the thousandth time the sheep forsakes his Shepherd and needs to be found again. As many times as he loses his way, that many times will he be found. And if the Lord does not lift him up from the misery into which he plunges himself, he will perish forever. Unless God’s searching love intervenes for him, he perishes forever. That is reality in spite of what he initially may have experienced of God’s love. The poet of this psalm was no stranger to God’s people. Neither was he a stranger to God. After all, he refers to himself as “Thy servant.”

To be lost, and to see that by nature you are outside of God’s searching love, is something that generally is not experienced enough. Man often relies on his experiences, some religious emotion at a certain stage in his life. He leans on his experiences and considers them to be the basis of his salvation. But is this sufficient? Would this perceived work of salvation be a true work of grace in the heart? When God’s Spirit works in a saving manner, the true sheep increasingly discovers his own depravity. And as the knowledge of his sin-sick heart increases, likewise the awareness increases that he needs to be sought and found by God.

It is a sign of spiritual life when a sheep cries out in prayer for the good Shepherd to find him. A sinner, dead in his trespasses and sins, does not ask for God to seek and find him. On the contrary, the wicked say, “Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways” (Job 21:14).

 

From The Everlasting Word by Frans Bakker, compiled and translated by Gerald R. Procee. Reformation Heritage Books and Free Reformed Publications, 2007. Used by permission. For further information, click here.

 

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