Coming Home

Jesus told a parable of a young man who took his inheritance early, left home, and went out to live the party life with the world. When his money ran out, so did his friends. He ended up feeding pigs while perishing with hunger.

But one day he came to his senses and said, “My father’s hired servants have plenty of bread, and to spare, while I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you and am no longer worthy to be called your son: make me as one of your hired servants” (John 15:17-19). Then he arose and came to his father.   

Home is more than a place; it is a Person. The young man went home in his heart to his father, before his feet took him to the place. He came to his senses about the goodness of the father he had run from.

As he approached home… “When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, calling out: “Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him! And put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet! And bring the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and rejoice! For this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

Jesus told this parable because He is the One who came to ‘seek and save that which is lost.’ He calls the world to “repent” rather than perish. He paid our debt of sin at the Cross so we can ‘come Home’ without fear, to find the open arms of a waiting Father and a celebration ready to begin.

May our lives testify to a perishing world: There’s no place like Home.

(Devotional by Lisa Cataford)