99dash-ONE!
Going after the one. When one is lost, we don’t wait for them to find their way back — we go get them.
“What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine… and go after that which is lost, until he find it?” — Luke 15:4
You don’t have to blend in, mask your scars, or pretend you have it all together to be sought after by the Master.
Website Editorial | By Pastor Alton Bryant
The Call to the Isolated, Strayed, and Stricken
Present, but not included.
Every school has the room. It is usually down the hall, past the front office, with a few desks facing the wall. In-School Suspension. The student is not expelled and not sent home. They are still in the building, still on the roll, still counted present. But they are cut off from the classroom, the lunch table, and the life of the school. Same walls, different world.
Now look at the church house and the world around it. Some of God’s people are sitting in an ISS room that no principal ever assigned. They are present, but not included. And if you look at the door, you will see three letters:
Isolated. Strayed. Stricken.
Some landed there through hurt and withdrawal. Some landed there by their own choices. Some did nothing at all, and life simply struck. Each carries a different struggle. But the good news is that the Shepherd’s call goes to all three, and no one has to serve out their time alone.
Where the Call Begins
Heaven Is Already Reaching
There is a voice that goes out ahead of us. It was calling long before any church hung a sign or opened a door. Our Lord Himself said that no one can come to Him unless the Father draws him (John 6:44), and that drawing is the reason this call exists. We are simply invited to go where the Spirit is already going.
“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.”
— John 6:44
The Greek word for draw is helko (Strong’s G1670), meaning to drag or pull, the picture of a power greater than the one being moved. Jeremiah heard the same heart from the Lord long before: “with lovingkindness have I drawn thee” (Jeremiah 31:3). The drawing is never cruel. It is love at work.
But we must not treat the lost as one crowd, because the Word never does. Three kinds of people are being called, and each one carries a different weight.
I.
The Isolated
Cut off, withdrawn, or left alone
Scripture rarely uses the word isolated, but it speaks often of the solitary, the one nobody seeks out. The Hebrew yachid (H3173) means an only one, a lonely one (Psalm 68:6). In Psalm 142:4, “no man cared” rests on darash (H1875), to seek after: no one was seeking him out.
“I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.” — Psalm 142:4
- David in the cave of Adullam
- Elijah under the juniper tree, certain he alone was left (1 Kings 19)
- The lepers, sent to dwell alone (Luke 17:12-13)
- The woman at the well, who came alone at the sixth hour (John 4)
The Shepherd’s Answer: “God setteth the solitary in families” (Psalm 68:6). The isolated are not scolded. They are found, and set back among the people of God.
II.
The Strayed
Wandered from the fold, one step at a time
The Hebrew ta’ah (H8582) means to err, to wander off course. The Greek planao (G4105) means to go astray, and gives us our word planet, a wandering body. The lost sheep of Luke 15:4 is apollumi (G622): lost, perishing if left where it is.
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.” — Isaiah 53:6
- The lost sheep of Luke 15:4-6, laid on the Shepherd’s shoulders, rejoicing
- The prodigal son, and the father who ran to meet him (Luke 15)
- Peter, who denied Him three times and was restored three times (John 21)
- The psalmist: “seek thy servant” (Psalm 119:176)
The Shepherd’s Answer: Straying is the common story, not the shame of a few. The Shepherd does not drive the sheep back. He carries it. And the church has its part: whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way saves a soul from death (James 5:20).
III.
The Stricken
Struck down by what life brought
The Hebrew naga (H5060) means to touch, to strike, to reach and afflict. The man left beaten on the Jericho road suffered plege (G4127), blows and wounds (Luke 10:30). The stricken carry real wounds of body, loss, grief, or betrayal.
“Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” — Isaiah 53:4
- Job, struck in body, family, and reputation
- Naomi, who came home empty and asked to be called Mara (Ruth 1)
- The woman with the issue of blood, twelve years afflicted (Mark 5)
- The man at Bethesda, thirty-eight years with no one to help him (John 5)
The Shepherd’s Answer: “I will seek that which was lost… and will bind up that which was broken” (Ezekiel 34:16). The stricken do not need a lecture. They need to be bound up.
One Shepherd
Three Callings
The Isolated need to be found.
The Strayed need to be carried home.
The Stricken need to be healed.
Each carries a different struggle, yet it is the same Shepherd, the same Spirit drawing, and the same commission that sends us out: “Go ye therefore” (Matthew 28:19).
In school, ISS ends when the time is served. In Christ, the Shepherd walks into the room, carries them out, and bears the consequence Himself (Isaiah 53:6).
No one has to serve out their time alone.
You are seen. You are pursued. You are the One.
99dash-ONE! is the heart of The Bridge at Breaking Bread Global Ministries — an outreach burden for the ones everyone else has stopped looking for.
Know someone sitting in the ISS room? Need prayer yourself? Bring us the one, or join Pastor Alton and Tammie in the pursuit.
BRING US THE ONE JOIN THE PURSUIT
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. Read each passage in the Amplified Bible for added clarity, and trace the Thompson Chain Reference lines on these themes. Strong’s numbers are given for further word study.