100th Lamb / Blest Atheist

 

Australian White lamb 4 weeks old in the southeastern USA

There’s another blogger I met years ago. Unfortunately, she hasn’t posted in several years, but her testimony is awesome. I thought of it as I wrote yesterday’s post. It most certainly met the qualifications of answered prayer, as well as rendering praise.

Elizabeth Mahlou wrote several blogs. One was entitled “100th Lamb”, another blog was one about her family and it was there she shared her conversion story. She introduces it with:

I spent the first five-plus decades of my life as a confirmed atheist. It was not that I had never heard about God. I simply did not think God existed, and I felt sorry for those I considered deluded into thinking that there was a divinity that they could lean on in hard times. I prided myself on my ability to handle many different kinds of challenges -- financial crises, abusive childhood, disabled children, educational barriers -- without having to "dream up" a divinity for support.

She became familiar with the story of that 100th sheep before her experience - it's well shared verses:

How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. (Matthew 18:12-13 KJV)

Why would Jesus use this as an example? the answer is in the verse preceding this:

For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost. (Matthew 18:11 KJV)

And the one following:

Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. (Matthew 18:14 KJV)

Every child will have the opportunity to do God’s will. Humankind may see to it that a child dies in their innocence before they are capable of making an informed decision, but I certainly would not want to be the unrepentant person who caused that child’s death, would you?

Elizabeth Mahlou reached over five decades of life without God. Why wouldn’t she be able to continue to ignore him? What would bring her to see herself as that 100th sheep that did go astray? You’ll have to read her story and make your own decision. But I can show you story where a man set in his ways was certainly a lost sheep:

And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul. . . And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison. (Acts 7:58, 8:1-3 KJV)

A chapter later, Saul starts down the path to become Paul:

And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? (Acts 9:1-4 KJV)

Saul not only changed his name, he changed his life. Read his letter to the churches and you’ll know how a church should be. Read his actions in Acts, and you’ll know how a missionary should be. All because Paul met Jesus, heard Him, and responded.

That’s what makes Christianity so easy – and so very difficult to understand without the Holy Spirit. So very simple that when someone asks:

. . . Sirs, what must I do to be saved? (Acts 16:30b KJV)

And the answer is given:

And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:31 KJV)

While that same man later writes of a reasonable service:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Romans 12:1-2 KJV)

How can we understand what is reasonable service? What is acceptable unto God? How do we learn? I like how Paul explained it to the church at Corinth:

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; (1 Corinthians 1:21-23 KJV)

An atheist acted foolishly, in a moment of jest she thought. Changed lives – that’s available to every one of those lost lambs Jesus came to save. To read more of her life's story, check her biography on Amazon: Blest Atheist by Elizabeth Mahlou.