“Welcome Home!”

“Welcome Home!”

What is your picture of God? Do you see Him as a Father Who pursues you? Our image of Who God is, is the most important thing about us. In Luke 15, Jesus paints a portrait of God as a Father who welcomes us home with open arms.

Head down, guilt-stricken, the prodigal slumps home to the father. Head high, love-motivated, the father sprints to his son. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20).

Christ’s portrait is so very different from the Middle Eastern expectation, as Ken Bailey’s interview of Middle Eastern Christians depicts.

He asked them, “And what would happen if the boy came back home, penniless, hungry, and broken?” The Middle Eastern reply: “The father would certainly not run to him and receive him! The father would stay hidden for a while and make the son eat humble pie outside the gate of the village.”

This is not what occurs in Jesus’ story. The father, our Father, runs to his son. He sprints, rushes, and races to his prodigal son. He forgets his dignity. He forgets the insult and disrespect his son had shown him. He doesn’t care what others might think. He doesn’t care that his peers will call him an old fool. No! He picks up his flowing robe and races to his son!

But we see something even before this. You caught it, didn’t you? “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him.” How? Why?

Jesus is painting a picture of a father who listens to every noise, every sound. “A traveler. Could it be my son?” He is vigilant—on the lookout. He hears that sound; his eyes spy out the terrain. “He’s about his size, it might be him.” Crestfallen day after day, because yet another traveler is not his son. Until today. Today his lost son is found! Today his dead son is resurrected. And he sprints to his son. In no other religion anywhere on the planet does one come to know God as the Racing One; as the Pursuing One. Because Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship with God in Christ.

When you blow it…yet again. When that besetting sin gets the best of you…for the umpteenth time. When spiritual defeat seems your constant companion. When Satan convinces you that the Father is tired of you… Return to your pursuing Father. To the Racing One, the Pursuing One.

The father does the same with the eldest son. Listen to Luke 15:28. “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.” In no other religion anywhere in the world does one come to know God as the Pleading One; the Wooing One.

Even if you and I have been guilty of thinking we don’t need God, of acting as if we can save our own souls, we can and must return to the Pleading One, the Wooing One. He’s the Father we each long for; the Father Who wants, welcomes, pursues, and forgives us. Return to the Forgiving One.

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What is your image of God today?