The father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate!This was after a hug and kiss spectacle in the street where the father was likely out of breath from running!
And while he was still a long distance away, his father saw him coming, and was filled with loving pity and ran and embraced him and kissed him.As I listened with tears in my eyes I thanked God for His extravagant grace. He sees us coming home and he runs to embrace and kiss us! This story truly is about the Father's unconditional love for us! It's about the party He throws when we come home!
This morning I'm so filled with peace and thankfulness. But I also can't stop thinking about an argument I had with a church pastor one time. I had gone to speak with him about his church's practice of shunning people who leave his church. Here's the story.
A single young adult in the church had come to believe God was wanting her to move away, to experience Him in another city, and so the Pastor told the church they were to not have any contact with her after she left. He taught his church that the rejection and loneliness would create in her a repentance leading her back to his church. I decided to challenge his doctrine of shunning by using the story of the prodigal son.
I tend to get really excited and worked up about this story. I came home to my God and Father at age 21, after four years of rebellion. I have a picture on my office wall of the prodigal son coming home. I have a poem I wrote to God taped to the back of the picture. I've read books about this story. But mostly I've leaned into this Father of grace and forgiveness clearly portrayed in this story. As I got into my reasons why this pastor should not shun this teenager I felt filled with the Spirit. I said, "Why did the father go ahead and give his boy the money and let him leave? Why did the son think to return home? I suggest he had a picture in his head the entire time he was gone. That image was of his father, arms open wide on the front porch, or staring through the window. The attitude of the father is supposed to be our attitude as well, toward those who might leave us!"
As I got more wound up the pastor's face got more frowned up...or down. But I continued. "What if, instead of allowing this girl to go out under heavy rejection, gossip, and slander, we send her out with an inheritance? What if, instead of telling the church to shun her -- to not talk to her or see her off, or invite her back -- we have a meeting and gather around her and bless her? What if we lay hands on her, give her gifts, tell her we'll miss her and she can always return home? What if we show her the same mercy that God shows us?!" At this point he couldn't listen to me any longer and so he exploded with anger.
"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING ABOUT THE FEAR OF THE LORD!!" he shouted at me. Then, with a red face, he described a God that, frankly, well... I don't know the God he was describing.
It's sad how people can get off track, thinking God doesn't love them. I think somewhere deep down this pastor doesn't really feel the love and forgiveness of God. I continued to describe the loving Father whom I have come to know but I could tell I was attempting to cut through years and years of legalism. So I bowed out of the argument. But I have never stopped praying for him. Everyone - especially church leaders - should know and feel the unconditional love of the Father that allows us to call HIM - our God -- "Father." What is available to one is available to all who are justified by faith -- peace with God.
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Romans 5:1-2Fortunately, I heard the girl's family and friends did not follow the pastor's plea for shunning and reached out to her anyway while she was gone. They made sure she knew she was loved, accepted, and forgiven. So she returned to the church. Unfortunately, the same is not true for many others that were shunned by this pastor. But there's always hope.
I'm working on some posts about church shunning. It's a topic that I wish no one had to write about. But many have. I'm not the first. Nor am I the expert. I have opinions just like everyone else. Most of my opinions I'm willing to budge on. But there is one opinion I hold to pretty strongly -- God LOVES us!
God LOVES you! HE loves YOU with a love that our feeble hearts cannot understand. So HE sent HIS son to put on human flesh, to become just "like the children", where he told some amazing stories (like the prodigal son story), all of which reveal the TRUTH about God's amazing love. If that were not enough this Lord of Lords and King of Kings washed the dirty, stinky feet of his followers in an upper room. He did this to show them HOW to love others - others they would soon lead!
Then this God in a man's body voluntarily died on a cross for our sins, making it possible for us to have peace with God. He didn't stay in the cold ground long. Three days. He then went back home to be with His Father, where He now sits at God's right hand and intercedes for us, where I'm convinced He points right down at you and me, elbows his Father, and says, "Look, there's one of your children right there! And there's another one! And look!! There's one coming home to you RIGHT NOW!!!" At which point the Father jumps to his feet with excitement and a party begins in the temple courts!
There is NO love like the LOVE of our God. And there is NO greater point to this life than to surrender to HIS Spirit and allow that same supernatural love to somehow eek out of us, through our own natural forms. We are simply HIS vessels on Earth now, placed here to show the Father's love. But first we must come home running. Come home running. He understands. His name is Jesus! And He understands.
To my pastor friend...you don't have to shun people anymore. God has not shunned you. Your past no longer matters. If you were to repent to those you've hurt they would forgive you and accept you, just like our God. God accepts you and loves you with all HIS heart. You cannot earn His love or a better place in heaven. His love for you cannot increase nor can it decrease. It is, and always has been, at its max... for you. So come home running. He understands. His name is Jesus! And He understands.
PS - There are SO many more than a mere 7000 gonna be partying in paradise! ;-)
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