God’s Forgiveness

When we stray from His presence, He longs for you to come back. He weeps that you are missing out on His love, protection and provision. He throws His arms open, runs toward you, gathers you up, and welcomes you home.  Charles Stanley

Jesus spent a lot of time with sinners during His time on earth.  He hung out with tax collectors, adulterers and many who thought they could never be good enough or ceremonially clean enough.  The Pharisees grumbled about Jesus and his tendency to hang out with the wrong crowd. 

One of my favorite parables is about the prodigal son.  It took me a long time to figure this one out and truly understand it.  Jesus was trying to teach sinners what God’s love really meant.  It was not necessary to be ceremonially clean enough because we will never achieve that goal. 

The prodigal son illustrates God’s true love.  The story goes that the son came to his father and asked for his inheritance.  Back in that day this just didn’t happen.  A son didn’t ask for his inheritance. It was understood that a father gave the inheritance when he decided it was time.  It was a great show of disrespect in that day.  He then took the money and ran.  The custom of that day was a son took care of his aging parents.  The next thing he did was he spent the inheritance on partying. His father had spent years accumulating the inheritance through hard work and good stewardship and the son blew it.  The last thing he did was he went to work caring for hogs.  Hogs were considered an unclean animal in Jewish society so he really scraped the bottom of the barrel on this one. 

The thing Jesus was trying to teach was God’s true nature when it comes to our sin.  God’s character and nature prompts Him to forgive us.  There is nothing we can do on our own to prompt God to forgive us. 

When the son finally realized he had nothing and had convinced himself he deserved nothing, he decides to return home.  The part I love about the story is that the Father had been watching for the son since the time he left and he never gave up hope of seeing his son again.   This is what God does for each of us.  He patiently waits for our return to close relationship with Him.  When we wander away from Him, he made a way for us to get back through Christ’s death on a cross.  

At the end of the story when the father sees the son he takes off running.  In that day it was undignified to run in public.  Here we see the father running to embrace the prodigal son. The Pharisees couldn’t understand how Jesus could portray the God of the universe running to a sinner and throwing his arms around him.

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, when I sin I often picture you as the chastising Father who is only waiting for me to come back so that you can deal with me harshly.  I often forget that Your very nature is one of love for me a sinner.  If You had not loved me You would not have provided me with a way back to You.  Thank you for loving me even when I sin and for patiently waiting for me to get back to You. 
     
Scripture:    “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.  And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’  “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.  And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ Luke 15:20-24