“And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!” Luke 15:17
We have all heard the story of the Prodigal Son, but made little application to ourselves. After all that is the story of someone involved in egregious sins that lead to the pigpen. It is obviously speaking of someone else. It is the story for the other guy. But really, the story of the Prodigal Son describes us all as the children of God. We are all unfaithful children of our benevolent Father and have squandered the abundant inheritance he so graciously has bequeathed to us. We have a place set for us at the banquet table, and though we may not be eating with pigs, many of us are, at the least, eating in the basement.
Let’s set all physical pleasures aside for a moment and concentrate on the spiritual blessings God has promised us. In Philippians we are told that, “God will supply every need of ours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19) This seems to be a promise, but do we live lives that reflect those blessings? If we do not, is it because God’s promises are false, or is it because we live lives that don’t allow his promises to exist.
Sin is an insane, unreasonable, illogical, self-destructive way of life. It negates the plain hand of our heavenly Father, full of every provision we need, and follows after the hallucination of worldly pleasures and fulfillment. We look at our lives, however and think, “I have not thrown away everything; I am not running with harlots; I am not eating with the pigs; I am not the prodigal, but are we positive about that? Has our Father set the table of spiritual blessing for us and we are satisfying ourselves with less? Are we running with a corrupt world and eating mush instead of marvelous meals? Are we prodigals not miles from our Father’s house, not outside the country, but close at hand, seeing the blessings, but hanging out in the courtyard, the garage, the basement, knowing the blessings are close, but not experiencing them anymore than the Prodigal.
We are the King’s children! He tells us in Isaiah 41:10 to “Fear not, for (He is) with (us); (we need not) be dismayed, for (He is our) God; (and He) strengthens (us), (He) will help (us), (and) will uphold (us) with (His) righteous right hand.” Isn’t that blessing? Isn’t that an invitation to the table where we can receive from Him, what we cannot receive from the world. He is serving up peace for us, strength for us, help for us, and perseverance for us? And that is just the entree’s.
No one God’s house is hungry or wanting, and yet here we stand in the fast food line of the world indulging ourselves with empty calories and wondering why we feel so weak and emaciated. We have an open invitation to the table when we have Christ as our savior. We walk into the banquet room and God the father looks at Christ the Son and Jesus says, “He is family,” and God says “Please grab a plate.” On the menu are all the blessings promised in the Word.
Here is a thought. Once we taste the blessing of God, why don’t we walk out to the courtyard and tell those who are also part of the family about the feast within. Let them know that there are no spiritual corn dogs being served in there. Tell them about the warm welcome that awaits them and the banquet table that is set for them. Of course, to tell them about what we have seen, we need to have seen it. In our own way, we are all prodigals if we have not taken advantage of the spot God has set for us at His table. No reason to wait. I am sure we are pretty hungry.
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