10 Ways to Identify Those Who Are Spiritually Lost

10. Ignores the voice of the Great Rescuer calling to them.

Perhaps those who are lost is busy about other things and like those of us who don’t hear our cell phones ring because we were in crowds. Perhaps he has silenced that inner voice so many times the sound has grown weaker and weaker.

“Today if you hear His voice, harden not your hearts” (Hebrews 4:7).

Clearly, there is so much more than can be said on this subject. I fear I’ve only skimmed the surface. But we who follow Jesus Christ must never let ourselves off too lightly because the people we are sent to rescue do not know they are in trouble.

Those who are lost do not know they are living the bad-news life. Those we have been sent to raise do not know they are dead.

Jesus said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick…. For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12-13).

Then we read, “Seeing the multitude, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36).

Whether they know it or not has no role to play in our assignment.

In her book A Severed Wasp, Madeleine L’Engel relates a graphic image from an old George Orwell essay. He wrote, “A wasp was sucking jam on my plate and I cut him in half. He paid no attention, merely went on with his meal, while a tiny stream of jam trickled out of his severed esophagus. Only when he tried to fly away did he grasp the dreadful thing that had happened to him.”

We think of the freshly shorn Samson. “(Delilah) said, ‘The Philistines are upon you, Samson!’ And he awoke from his sleep and said, ‘I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.’ But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.’ (Judges 16:20)

Before we can rescue them, they need to know they are among those who are lost. Our task is to penetrate that lostness with the gospel of Jesus.