ARMS WIDE OPEN
Whenever I am blessed to be able to go see my four little ones in Virginia, I love the hallway that I walk down, after getting off the plane. My grandkids can see me coming. They run calling “Nana-Nana.” I open wide my arms and they run into my arms with hugs and kisses! That gives me so much joy! There was one time, several years ago, that I was concerned that my three-year-old granddaughter might not remember who I was. When they are so little, going six months between visits can be a long time in their little lives. But when I came down that long hallway, I started waving at her and she literally ran and jumped into my arms and squeezed me around the neck. I cannot tell you how that made me feel! (If you are a grandparent reading this, I think you know exactly what I am saying.) The joy-the happiness-the love at that moment will live in my heart forever!
I want to talk about two fathers who opened their arms wide open. Open your Bibles and read Luke 15:11-32. We have heard many thoughts about the youngest son and the oldest son, but have you ever thought from the viewpoint of the father? I want to focus on the fact that the father always had his arms wide open just waiting for the son to realize his error and come back into his arms. But before we do that, I want to remind us about the youngest son and what he did. The younger son, the Prodigal. In Webster’s dictionary the word prodigal means: “reckless-wasteful.” This son asked his father for his part of his inheritance. The father made the choice to give it to him. This son made choices after leaving home that made him void of all his inheritance. He wasted it on things of this world. The younger son, after losing his inheritance, was eating and living with the pigs.
Verse 17 says, the younger son, “came to himself.” I love that expression! He realized that his bad choices-his selfish choices, led him to this place and caused him to stumble and fall. Read verse 20. It says “And he arose and came to his father…” He realized that he needed to go back home-back to his father. The son actually had to put into action, he had to make an effort, to come back to his father. I can just see his father when he saw him a “far way off” with his arms wide open, ready to wrap his arms around him! I can feel that anticipation and joy this father felt when he saw his son coming towards him. When the lost son returned home, he felt like he did not deserve to receive anything from his father or even be called his son. Verses 18-19 tell us that this son became humble & realized he had done wrong. He said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” His father instead, brought the best he had and gave to him. (Read on in this scripture about the older son and the jealousy he felt towards his brother. He forgot that he had always had the father’s blessings and always the best at his disposal. We will save any other thoughts about the older son for another time.)
The other father I want to talk about is our Father-God. Just like this lost son, sometimes we have to reach bottom-get down into the muddy mire, before we can truly rise up and embrace the reality that there is a God who cares so much for us that He gave His only Son on the cross to die for us! Arms wide open! Just like the son, we can make choices here on this earth that are not the best for us. We can live our lives for ourselves or we can live our lives in service to our God. There might be times that we have gone so far into the world that we feel we can never be accepted by His son. Isn’t that how we feel sometimes? We feel we have done so much sinning that God will never forgive us. But that is a lie spoken to us by the devil, who is always ready to jump into our heads and pull us farther away from God, and make us feel that this world has so much more to offer. We have to wake up and realize that we are sinning-doing what is not right and ask for forgiveness. We have to look up, come back to our Father and ask God for His forgiveness. Then, we can truly run into our loving Father’s arms with complete & total joy.
So, two of the things we need to do when we come to our senses and realize that we have made choices that pull us away from our Father are: we have to realize what we are doing and then reach out to God asking for forgiveness. God chose to give us His Son, Jesus Christ, with His arms spread wide open on that cruel cross of Calvary. Jesus had His arms wide open for us so that when we fall, and yes, we will, God will be right there waiting, with arms wide open, for us to come back to Him. He gives us forgiveness and we have the amazing reality of our inheritance in heaven one day! 1 Peter 1:3-5 reads “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” God gave His only Son for us so that we can have a hope of realizing our inheritance; which is living in heaven with Him after our lives are over here on this earth. God raised Him up so we can have that hope. God gives us the choice to squander our inheritance by living with and by the world, just like the Prodigal son did, or we can realize what God did for us and we can live in service to and for Him.
I can just see the father, with his arms wide open, running to his son. Can’t you? As a parent, I can feel the joy in that father’s heart, that this lost son was coming home. Maybe you have a child that has fallen away from you and God. He or she has made choices that have sent them far away from God. But God always gives us hope and mercy, that no matter how long it might be, they can always come home. And we as parents will always have our arms wide open just waiting for them to return to us and God. The Prodigal son’s father, never lost his love for his son. Our Father, in heaven, is the same way. Romans 8:38-39 reads “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Wow, that tells us nothing can separate us from God’s love. Even if you partake of the things of this world: drinking, taking drugs, given your body for money, committed a crime and am in prison, stopped gathering with other Christians in church, do not even know where your Bible is. Those things cannot separate you from the love that God has for you! When you realize that you are in the miry pit “with the pigs,” be assured that God is always waiting for you to return to Him! Do you need to leave those worldly choices that you have made, which have made you fall from Him? Run back to God! Do not delay! Don’t say I will do it tomorrow. What if tomorrow does not come? What if death comes your way before you make yourself right with God? Don’t choose the world and lose your inheritance in heaven. Choose God and work for Him every day! Remember, God is always waiting for you to return to Him, with His arms wide open!
Till next time! Keela