A Father's Embrace!

(Luke 11:10)  “For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

My initial thought pictures a child standing outside His father’s room in the early hours of the morning somewhat frightened to venture back the way he came as he remembered the emotion of fear that gripped his heart back in his curtain drawn room but now he faced a different dilemma the door to his father’s room. Thoughts foraged through his young brain; already he had begun to reason things out, would his father welcome him or would he be scolded for disturbing his sleep. Do you feel like that at times? Are we sometimes so frightened to approach the “throne room of grace” that we stand outside this massive room debating whether we are worthy enough to enter?

We will never qualify within ourselves, outside of the Lord Jesus’ complete work in and through mankind’s redemption. He has made the way, we will never find acceptance from the only true God outside of Christ. Why then do we feel that some days we are worthy than other days to enter the “throne room of grace”? It will never have anything to do with our achievements or our failures but only the finished work of Calvary, Christ has accomplished almost the impossible, and He has made a way for sinful mankind back to God the Father. He has qualified us (all who have His Spirit), it is about His achieved and it has nothing to do with our Christian progress. This truth will and can never changed. Let us not be confused, we must start with the understanding that in Christ alone we stand. No matter how we stumble and fall which to some extend disqualifies the Christians stance, it can however never change what Christ alone achieved on Calvary. It is mission accomplished! If a man one day stood upon a hill and proclaim to the crowd below that Jesus was the way the truth and the life and then soon after he no longer believed, would his indecision change history? Of course not! Regardless of the bad examples that we see around us on every corner, in fact my life has in time past been one of volatility. But nothing I or anyone could ever do would ever change what the Lord Jesus accomplished on Calvary, end of story!

It is only His achievement that the Father willingly accepted; it had nothing to do with us in that sense. Even John the Baptist was only a forerunner to make a way for the coming King, it was only once he had baptized the Lord through water that the heavens echoed these wonderful words; “and behold, a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:17)   

Everything in our lives hinge on these two principles; “faith towards God and repentance from dead works.” It is God who will accomplish all that He has set out to do, no opposing questions asked! The sooner we learn to “let go and let God”, the sooner we find rest for our souls.

Now as that boy eventually worked it out He burst through that door into His Father’s room to find his Father standing with open arms and as the boy felt the warm of his Fathers embrace he heard Him say, “I knew you would eventually understand.” And as the tears rolled down the boys cheeks he too now understood.

Signing off

Tyrone