“He got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)
The poet Robert Frost once famously said, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Well, as a pastor who has worked with many families, offering counsel on many broken relationships, there are homes where that is not an existential truth. Because of sin, some relationships have been ruined beyond the point of repair, reunion, and restoration. But there is one home where Frost’s statement is always true, and that home is in the heart of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Home is where His heart is.
Like the Prodigal Son, who squandered his inheritance on wild living and was so desperate to go back home that he was perfectly willing to live not as a son, but as a hired servant if his father would take him back, we are always received back into the heart of our heavenly Father, no matter how often we rebel and run away. Home truly is where His heart is . . .
- His heart of forgiveness
- His heart of acceptance
- His heart of grace
- His heart of mercy
- His heart of love
Home is where His heart is because the Father’s door is always open, and we are always welcomed home, no matter what we have done. We are eternally secure in our relationship to our Lord, and there is nothing we can do to ruin it. Will there be consequences for our sin? Oh my, yes! Our God is the perfect Father, and He will discipline His children, just as any good and loving father will discipline a disobedient child. But there is absolutely nothing that can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus . . . NOTHING!
I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)
Regardless of where this message finds you today, home is where His heart is, and you will always find Jesus waiting at the front door with open arms and nail-scarred hands ready to receive you back where you belong. You have His Word on that!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 