Meet Yourself in the Parables. (Part 3)

We have been considering the three prodigals in the story Jesus told in Luke 15:11ff. One more day of reflection will be of benefit to us all.

Our Heavenly Father is the galactic spend thrift, the prodigal of the universe. The universe watches in awe with their fingers on their lips. The angels stand with heads bowed and weep before the scene unfolding before them. All creation bows at the foot of the cross as it weighs the enormity of what is happening. The sun veils its face and in the midday midnight of Golgotha the earth tremblers in fear while fallen angels cower away to hide.

Six hours of hell on the cross into which are condensed an eternal separation from God, and then the fathomless utterance that must be listen to from a great distance for who can comprehend it; “My God My God why?” This is a great chasm into which we can but peer. This is the hour that baptises the world in forgiveness and offers its rebels an exchange. Their sin for His righteousness.

God lavishes His love on a fallen, unworthy, and ungrateful world and what gratitude do we return to God, for “if you have done it unto one of the least of these….” If God is in the business of saving sinners and we are not active with him in that business, then how would we be comfortable with him in eternity. Yes, the church is a business! A business organized for the proclamation of the gospel. God’s chief business in this world is not about making comfortable buildings but about saving rebels from a planet in rebellion. True stewardship is about acknowledging God’s prodigal grace and using all we have at our hands to share that grace with others so that it all does not go wasted.

May we be like the sower in the field and cast His grace to the wind in the hope that it may fall on some good soil, that the recipient might heed his offer and bear the fruit of eternity.