What Does It Mean to Be Lost?
What Does It Mean to Be Lost?
What does it mean to be lost? Did you know that God says there are more people in this world than there are people who are not lost? Are you lost? In the Bible, the word “lost” is used to describe man’s standing before God prior to salvation. Those who are in this natural state have pleasures that are world-centered, values that are world-oriented, and ambitions that are world-directed. Their flesh, their appetites, their desires, their decisions are all full of the world’s bias and privilege. But there’s more!
Those who are “lost” are this way because they have been thoroughly corrupted by sin, so much so that Jeremiah 17:9 says their “hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” Consequently, their personality, their intellect, their emotions, their will, have all turned away from God and turned toward sin, (Ephesians 4:18). Sin means to “miss the mark”, it’s falling short of God’s holy standard as Paul taught in Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Those who are “lost” are children of the devil (John 8:43-44), they are under Satan’s rule (John 12:31), and they are all blinded by Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4). The awful reality is they are without God, and without hope (Ephesians 2:12), and, according to John 3:36, they are all under the wrath of God.
But there is good news. You may be lost, but you can be found! Luke 19:10 tells us that Jesus came into this world “to seek and to save those who are lost.” Jesus came for you! Oh beloved, God loves you so much that He sent His Son to pay the penalty for your sin on the cross, to die, and to be raised on the third day, victorious over sin. If you will repent and believe this gospel, then as a new creation in Christ, you will not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). You will not be lost; you will be found! Now this is something to praise the Lord for!
This is Laine Wilder for Carry the Light Ministries, bringing you Insights From an Elder.
by Laine Wilder
author of “Insights From an Elder” for
Carry the Light Ministries
