I was driving the SS Vanterprise back from work yesterday and I was listening to a song on the old iPod shuffle. It was a song that I have heard no less than 100 times (and that is NOwhere enough). There was something that I noticed this time. Some lyrics that were in the song all of the 100 times that I had heard it before, but for some reason, this time was the moment for them to pound my chest like King Kong.
“Maybe your Forgiveness is right where you Fell.” Jon Foreman and the Switchfoot crew hit it on the head on this one.
I have always wondered just how close God was when I have fallen. Or for that matter, when I still fall. Does He turn His back on me in shame? Does He hang His head and regret creating me? Does He sigh?
I think maybe the last one of those, yes. But it is just like the Prodigal Son. I mean, the prodigal son wished his dad dead. In those days, to receive your inheritance it meant that the father had to die. So dude took off with his inheritance and blew it. And after a while he decided… You know, I am just as unclean as these pigs that I am cleaning up after (which was a HUGE disgrace in the Jewish culture) but if I returned to my father’s house and worked as a slave, I would have it better than this. But watch what happens…
The Bible says nothing about him cleaning up before he got there. Prodigal would have to go through ceremonial cleansing and sin/guilt offerings to be purified. Regardless of that, the father ran out to meet his son. (Another faux pas, it was not proper for to run…) and then he embraced him, wrapped a cloak around him, and cranked up a party.
The son returned right to where he fell. What a beautiful story. The story of Jesus was not too much unlike the prodigal. God sent Jesus to earth. When he was born, the swaddling “cloths” he was wrapped in was known to be death shroud. That is where he appeared and took on flesh. He lived a blameless life physically apart from the Father. But when the time came, Jesus took on OUR sin and became separated from God totally. When “it was finished”, they took him down and wrapped him in (you guessed it) a death shroud…the same as he began. And as he beat death by raising up on the third day, he was once again reunited with his Father…who welcomed him into the Holy of Holies…the very throne room of God…at his right hand.
Just know that God will break all the rules just to have you back. But it starts with you. It is your decision. You can recognize your sin and distance from God. Confess your sins to Him. Ask Him for not only to forgive you, but to change your heart with the power of Jesus Christ. Surrender your life to Him. He will embrace you… And you know what? There is a party going on in Heaven waiting just for you.
Prodigal Thinker 