You bring up an important thing about the parables Luke 15:1-7 and Matthew 18:12-14. They are parables about sheep and shepherd and should probably not be understood to explain whether God always finds a person who strayed or not. The parables are about the joy of finding the lost, not about if the person lost always will be found.What it says is that if a man (not God) has a hundred sheep and one goes astray, then he (the shepherd) goes out and seeks it and if he finds it then their is great rejoicing. Then comes the connection to God - even so there is great rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents.
One can, by implication, see a direct correlation between the man and God and, if one chooses, can assert that God does not always find His lost sheep (i.e. straying sinner). That raises serious problems, however, not the least of which is that although God might be omniscient (although this is in serious doubt if God has no idea where the straying sinner went and needs to go out and look for him) God is not omnipotent in that He is incapable of keeping His own sheep, which is in direct contradiction to John 10.
Anyhow God does not use His raw power to find a sheep. If He did all would be found. The way God seeks the lost is by calling on them. If they respond they are found, if not they stay lost. So it's not a question of God's omnipotence, but a question of the person's response.
From John 10 one might ask if a sheep actually can stray since it's kept by the shepherd.
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