Life-changing decisions
I will arise and go to my father (Luke 15:18).
It is never easy to retrace our steps. Sometimes we are prevented by pride and sometimes by shame. And even when we are stripped of everything, it is possible to continue to resist God’s appeal to our hearts. Not long ago, we were thinking of the repentant thief. Our hearts were touched by how he was drawn to the Saviour at the very end of his life. But what about the other thief? As he was dying, he too witnessed the grace of Christ. But we see no response to that grace in his heart. His last words to the Lord were, “If you are the Christ…” (Luke 23:39). There was no one nearer to the Saviour of the world and yet so far away.
The prodigal son left home with such high hopes and quickly wasted what his father had so freely given him. He soon learned what it is to have nothing. Material poverty and spiritual poverty are not the same things. But material poverty can awaken us to spiritual need. Equally, wealth can reveal poverty in our souls. Zacchaeus was a wealthy man, but it exposed the emptiness of his heart and drove him to seek the Lord.
I know a dear Christian who grew up in a loving Christian home but chose a path away from God. One night, not for the first time, he awoke on the pavement of a city centre street, and in the words of the prodigal son “came to himself” (Luke 15:17). It was the start of a return to the Lord and the transformation of his life.
In the parable of the prodigal son, there is a critical moment after he “came to himself”. He speaks to himself and says, “I will arise and go to my father” (v. 18). Then in verse 20, it says, “And he arose and came to his father.” Many people get to the point of salvation and say in their hearts, “I will go to the Saviour.” But they do not. They allow the moment to pass, they put it off, and soon other things anaesthetise their conviction. And there are also Christians who have wasted years of their lives not faithfully following the Saviour or seeking the Kingdom of God. When the opportunity comes for God to restore the years “the locusts have eaten” (Joel 2:25), they hesitate and then continue along the same path. The prodigal son teaches us about the joy of repentance. Repentance humbles us, but it does not humiliate us; it opens the door for God’s love and blessing to be poured out on our lives.
When the son returned, the first thing the father did was to run to embrace and kiss him, to assure him he was loved and accepted. The father did not allow his son to say, “Make me like one of your hired servants.” Instead, he quickly showered upon him the blessings which evidenced his love for his son. We do not normally associate running or speed with God’s actions, which are always perfectly timed. But in Luke 15 they express how ready God is to make known His glorious grace. This was our experience when we first trusted Christ. And when we get things wrong, large or small, in our Christian lives, and when in pride or shame we will not – or feel we cannot – return, remember the prodigal son. Once we take steps towards God, He immediately and fully responds in the holy speed of His divine grace to restore the joy of our salvation (Psalm 51:12).
