A Devotion from Charles Spurgeon

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

I wonder whether the sheep could see that the shepherd rejoiced. I do not suppose that it could, but it could feel it. At any rate, I know that Christ has a way of saving us—oh, so gently, so lovingly, so gleefully, that he makes us happy in being saved. He saves us rejoicingly. It is a matter of thanksgiving to him when he gets hold of his lost sheep and gets it on his shoulders. It makes me glad to think that it is so.

We are not saved by a grudging Christ, who seems as if he were weary of us and must save us to get rid of us. He does not act with us as some rude surgeon might do who says, “I will attend to you directly, but I have plenty else to do, and you gratis patients are a trouble.” Nor does he roughly set the bone. No; Jesus comes, and he molds the dislocated joint, and when he sets it—there is bliss even about the method of the setting. We look into his face, and we see that he puts his most tender sympathy into each movement. You know the different ways that workers have. Some kind of work one is soon sick of. The principle of division of labor is a very admirable one for the production of results on a large scale, but it is a miserable business for the worker to have to do the same thing over and over again, all day long, as if he or she were an automaton. The best work is done by the happy, joyful worker, and so it is with Christ. He does not save souls out of necessity—as though he would rather do something else if he might—but his very heart is in it, he rejoices to do it, and therefore he does it thoroughly, and he communicates his joy to us in the doing of it.

Notice that Jesus Christ loves other people to rejoice with him, so that, when he finds a sinner, he has so much love in his heart that his joy runs over. Let us catch the blessed infection. If you have just heard of somebody being saved, be glad about it because Jesus is glad.