THE LOST COIN

The second part of the parable in Luke 15 is about a woman who lost one of her ten coins. The lost coin is simply another area of something lost that is valuable. The coin is worth about six cents in our money (much more in hers), not a very valuable coin on the exterior, but on the interior it represents a lost part to make a completed number, or again, wholeness. Something is missing.

This lost coin is found by ‘lighting a lamp’ and ‘sweeping the house,’ ‘searching thoroughly’ until she found it. The ‘lost coin’ part of us must come under the same search and rescue. The illumination of the Holy Spirit is to bring ‘life and light’ into our lost and dead areas and this is the beginning. Things that are dark and stained and in the shadows must be presented to the light. ‘The Word (Jesus, not the Bible) is the real light that gives light to everyone’ (John 1:9). As soon as we have enough light to see well, we should expect to begin sweeping. To see ourselves in any current condition of ‘the lost coin syndrome’ is to know that things must be cleaned and swept from our minds, our spirits, our habits, our thinking, our souls, our processing, and our actions and behavior. We will stay in the incompleteness of 9 coins if we do not meticulously sweep out our lives to reveal the lost areas. The tenth coin is found by searching the whole house. We uncover and move and look everywhere until we are whole and complete. Grace does the sweeping… not works.

“And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Jesus