The time of blessing and restoration is announced. What has been destroyed and taken away will
be restored. The past will not be simply
in the past, the Lord is going to restore that which was lost in the past. Overflow is the new rule of the day. The Lord is giving abundance, not just the
daily bread, not just the need of the people, but overflowing abundance, both
the wine and oil overflowing, the threshing floors full of grain. The blessing of God is seen everywhere and
all the peoples are called to praise Him who has dealt wondrously with
them. The promise is that they will
never again be put to shame. That day
must be in the future.
The prodigal repents, he knows that he is no longer worthy
to be called son and seeks to be established as a hired servant. He has been a hired servant of another and
has learned something of the love of his father, what a good man he truly
is. How could these two young men fail
so completely to appreciate their father.
The younger son rejected him, wished him good as dead because he so
longed for the inheritance and the life he could live with that in hand. He found that there wasn't enough inheritance
to fill that place in his life he was trying to fill and lost everything. At the point of sleeping and eating with the
pigs he realized that even servants in his father's household had a better life
so determines to go back in repentance.
The older son believes himself to be superior because he has served his
father faithfully but it is about him and not the father, he has never known
the sort of man his father is because he has seen himself not as son but as
servant, and that of his own making. The
father has known much grief because of his children. His love is great but, until now, neither has
claimed their sonship. Restoration is
sweet for the one and hateful to the other.
Do you count it all joy when you are being tested? I know that is certainly not my normal
attitude towards testing and trial.
James says that is to be our attitude though, we are to see the work of
God in the testing and allow it to work out faithfulness and steadfastness in
our lives, to produce godly character.
James' counsel sounds a good bit like Paul and also like Jesus in the
Sermon on the Mount when He speaks of blessedness in difficulty and
persecution. We need to change our way
of thinking towards these times and seasons, even if they do not end, we need
to ask Him to work His will in us to make us the people He needs us to be to do
the particular work we are given. Let us
seek the kingdom of God, laying aside all else because we know our loving
Father has an eternal reward for us that cannot be compared to anything in this
life.
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