The Prodigal at Home
We all talk about the “Prodigal Son,” well that is the one who landed up in the pig pen, but seldom do we ever talk about the “Prodigal Son” who is at “Home.” One is “Lost” out there in the “World of Sin,” while the other is “Lost inside the Church.” The Parable of the 10 Bridesmaids challenges us that half of this unique “Church Group” found themselves not ready for “The Bridegroom” and were eternally lost and forever locked out of Eternity, oh how so very sad, just plainly, “Lost in the Church.” Luke 15:28-32 “And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and entreated him. And he answering said to [his] father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”
The piece that the “Prodigal at Home,” totally missed, was found in Luke 15:31 “And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.” The “Prodigal at Home,” had been so focused on obeying his father in work, service, and always doing, that he never actually realized that everything he did and everything he improved, was actually his, the new barn, the new Combine Harvester, that new Tractor, and all that other new machinery was actually his, he owned it all, he had such a “Servant Mentality” and not that of an Owner/Operator, when he was actually the “Chief Executive” and about to be the “Chairman of the Board,” and yet he had his mind so stuck in the mud, that he did not do his work “As an Owner/Operator/Occupier,” and this is that very Son who was about to inherit, all things.
We can all “Mock Him,” for his being so “Short Sighted” and working and living like a slave, a servant, a hired hand, when he was really the Prince, the only Son, (His brother was as one dead to him) and therefore the only rightful Heir of the Corporation, so everything was his, he should have been running the Corporation all the time, as he would soon be in the near future, when he was to be officially installed at that top position. How about us, do we live here as “Children of the King of Heaven,” or as the saying goes, “Do you soar with the Eagles, or scratch in the dirt like chickens?”
Every person ever born on Planet Earth, is “Blood Bought by Christ on Calvary,” so do we live as Royal, standing out from the crowd, rightly representing “Our Heavenly Father,” or are we just “Background noise?” Somebody who does not “Stand out in the Crowd,” to find them you would have to carry out a “Passport Check,” to even find him, just another “Prodigal at Home,” plain ole “Lost in the Church.” How so seriously sad, to have associated, mixed, worshiped, but at no time had been a living partaker of the Father and eternity. Paul had this to say to a certain group; 2 Timothy 3:5 “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” Just some more “Prodigals at Home,” “Lost in the Church,” just “In it, but not Of it,” living in “The Fathers” presence, but with no living connection, relationship or fellowship with our “Heavenly Father.”
“I am the Vine and Ye are the Branches” parable talks plainly about being part of the vine, and yet many of us are not connected with heaven so we bear no fruit, and if this continues, one gets pruned right off and is put in the trash pile. “The Olive Tree” parable also points us to the folly of being complacent, “I am In the Church, and then God comes along, cuts us off, and then grafts in somebody else from outside the Church, who is willing to become part of the living body of Christ, actually growing and fruitful.
Our “Prodigal at Home,” was just as a “Dead Branch” and of no earthly use, well except as fire wood, or to be fed through the wood chipper to make compost and then to become useful to grow something else. Keith Green wrote a song on this vein and asked how could, “we be asleep in the light?” The Holy Spirit is doing all he can to bring us into Heaven. Jesus Christ has and is still working for our Salvation. God our Father is continually dispatching heavenly agencies and power to redeem each of us. The “Light of Heaven” streams forth from the Bible, and we can so easily leave its covers closed shut for days, months or even years, no heavenly light, just deep darkness, how so terribly sad, “a lost Prodigal at Home.”
The Holy Spirit is continually shining out God’s Love and Compassion upon us at all times, just as God’s abundant blessings of sunshine and rain upon the Righteous and the Sinners. In the Parable of the Vineyard, any branches that were not abounding, were pruned and kindly treated, so that they would abound and bring forth bounties, way more than they could ever have dreamed of when in the “pig pen,” or even lost at home in the Church. We can so easily repent, and be changed from Glory to Glory, no longer “Lost,” whether near or far away, come home to a vibrant relationship, and forever alive, “In Christ.”
