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SEEKING AND SAVING THE LOST
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man to work. Could one have wondered, if in this critical hour our Lord's thoughts had been wholly turned forward and inward, if, oblivious to his surroundings, He had been intent upon the tremendous experience of his passion with which He was now almost face to face? We do find Him faithful and busy in the outward duty until the last moment. As He loved his own until the end, so it may be said that He sought his own until the darkness of death closed in upon Him. But a moment ago He had helped the blind beggar at the entrance to Jericho, and, scarcely within the city, a publican becomes the object of his quest. Notice how vividly the sense of a specific duty, here and now to be performed, is present to the Savior's mind, for He announces to Zacchaeus: "Today I must abide at thine house." His times and ways and works were not his own but the Father's who had sent Him. But let us further notice the precise expression that principle receives in the statement: "The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost." There is no need of asking for the moment, whence He came; the fact of his coming in itself sufficiently claims our attention. For this "coming" means his coming into the world; it covers his entire earthly life; He was born for this purpose, and this purpose only, to seek and save the lost. Never in all human history was there such an absolute concentration of life upon a single specific task as that which our Lord here affirms of Himself. Every man comes into the world to work out a design of God in his existence. But in the case of each one of us this design