A Heart For The Lost

A friend recently shared this with me: Her high-school age son is involved with an after-school Bible club for local public school elementary students partnered with their church. The high-school students were sharing the parable of the virgins meeting the bridegroom (Matthew 25). They updated the parable and presented it in skit form to the elementary children who had never heard the story before. In the skit, some of the people were prepared and able to go to the party while others were left out. My friend's son played the part of the person who couldn't attend the party. At the point in the story where he was turned away, a little 7 year old girl felt so bad that he couldn't attend the party that she began crying. They ended up stopping the skit; when asked why she was crying she said that she wanted him to be able to go to the party. They tried to explain that it was just a skit and everything was really all right and finally were able to move on with the lesson.

We initially thought this was just a cute story of a little girl caught up in a skit until we realized that the little girl was the only one who really understood: her heart was breaking for the lost. Do our hearts break; do we weep for those who are lost and not attending the party of eternal life with our Savior? All too often, at least for me, the unsaved are not on my list of priorities and I don't really weep for them. It took the example of this little, unchurched girl to remind me that Jesus' heart is breaking for the lost. If I want to live like Jesus, then my heart must focus on them too.