“My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel
This quote rings deep within this heart of mine. It echoes and sings with a confidence that is not logical or reasonable by any stretch of the imagination. But I’m learning that I need to consciously aware of his solid and steadfast love that he has for me. I sometimes forget, and when I finally remember I shake my head, and look around in kind of a stunned silence.
He loves me!
But I’m not the only one who is deeply loved. There are millions of others who are walking in this outrageous love. None are worthy; all have sinned. Those who are following are those who have renounced their feeble efforts at self-righteousness. It simply doesn’t work. (But sometimes it takes a while to work this out.)
I ask myself, “What if I got what I deserve?”
And when I follow this ‘line-of-thought’ I get a gnawing sense of doom– sort of a panicky fear. To get what I really deserve would be the most terrible thing I could ever know. For “I am the chief of sinners.” I believe my past sin would destroy most people.
“But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”
Romans 5:8
My mental health can be fairly disruptive to my spiritual health. My depression poisons everything. I suppose that at times I can be quite ‘trying’ to those closest to me. It can be frustrating but I have discovered that His grace is more than enough to hold me tight, and protect others as well.
And Jesus accepts me, receives me, loves me even if others can’t or won’t. I may be ‘defective’ to some, outcast by others, but I am never, ever alone. Jesus loves me– not for what I can do or how I function. He loves me unconditionally.
“See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him”
“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail.”
“So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.”
Luke 22:31-32
I’ve been thinking about failure; it is something that I am really, really good at. In my over 40 years of walking with Jesus, I realized that I’ve experienced more weak moments then strong. I have easily failed more than I have succeeded. I am embarrassed by this. I’ve sinned, and failed more as a Christian, than I ever did as a pagan sinner. And things sometimes show little sign of improving.
Simon Peter is about to undergo a trial so intense and difficult, that unless Jesus intervenes it will probably destroy Peter.
(The only other blatant attack where Satan seeks permission is in the life of Job. It is reasonable to believe that the forces of hell are concentrated on Peter.)
You and I undergo some of this onslaught ourselves. We go through periods of intense trial. Everything just falls apart, and we lose hope. I’ve had several periods like that, it’s like a tornado from hell bears down upon my life.
But there is something remarkably good in all of this.
First, Jesus is praying for me to endure. He is the faithful intercessor for my soul.
Second, He gives us a modicum of understanding by warning us of the approaching storm. Peter is told ahead of time of what was going to happen.
Third, the wheat will be sifted. Sifting or winnowing of the grain is necessary, it’s a good and godly work of the Holy Spirit. It is a good thing, as it builds your faith.
Four, you will survive to strengthen your brothers and sisters.
All pain and failure gives us a mandate to serve others. Our weakness gives us a spiritual license to become a shepherd of mercy and hope. (You could say that you are now a licensed minister.)
We can ask for nothing more; it is a good and profound work to serve others.
In love’s work, only sifted people can truly serve.
Rembrandt, “The Return of the Prodigal Son,” c. 1661
17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ 20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.
Luke 15:17-24, ESV
Two hundred and eighty-nine words– these describe the life of every man, woman, and child who has ever lived. These 289 words reveal to us a God who loves far too much, way too easy. Perhaps we sort of expect that he will ‘appropriately’ punish his son– at least put him on probation at least. It only makes sense. But we find that is legalism talking.
“Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”
Many of us have lived as prodigals, and we have spent our inheritance like ‘drunken sailors.’ We really have nothing at all to show for it. The prodigal, completely destitute, takes the only work he can find. (Imagine a good Jewish boy feeding hogs.)
He is so far gone that he starts inspecting the filthy slop buckets for something to eat.
Many of us will understand his despair. Often there comes to us a crystalline moment of simple awareness. The prodigal, sin-crusted and impoverished, still has a lingering memory of the Father’s house.
The servants there had far more than him right now. Sometimes I wonder if in our captivity, we instinctively want to go home, if only in our minds, to be a servant there.
The Father has dreamed of this precise moment.
The parable says, “He saw him–felt compassion–ran out to him–embraced him–and kissed him.” The Father is a whirlwind of agape love. I’ve read the Parable of the Prodigal Son a hundred times or more. It never loses its punch. I simply want to bring some observations:
We see that his father receives him with a tender gesture. His hands seem to suggest mothering and fathering at once; the left appears larger and more masculine, set on the son’s shoulder, while the right is softer and more receptive in gesture.
The son’s head is downy, almost like a newborn’s. We must enter the kingdom like little children.
The Prodigal Son seems to be protected by his father. He snuggles near the Father’s breast. It’s love that holds him there.
Consider his sandals. It has taken a long time for him to come home.
Standing at the right is the prodigal son’s older brother, who crosses his hands in stoic judgment; we read in the parable that he objects to the father’s compassion for his brother.
We see his mother in the background in the painting, and a seated steward or counselor. One stands in profound joy, the other in sits in stunned perplexity.
But Rembrandt had painted the Prodigal once before, when he was considerably younger. And it is a very good painting. The prodigal is happy and gay; there is absolutely no indication of the consequences of sin.
The Prodigal Son in the Brothel, 1635
He’s a charming young man at the height of his popularity, and we see him at a happy party. He is spending the inheritance of his father.
But Rembrandt chooses at the very end of his life to re-paint it to reflect reality.
This is one of the last paintings he will do, and it is the Prodigal Son–destitute and repenting. I can only imagine; the years have taken a toll and he doesn’t really feel his first painting is enough. He wants to paint what is true.
He now is painting our spiritual condition.
We are given a work that some critics call as the greatest painting ever completed. The painting is now in St. Petersburg, Russia. It is seldom seen by visitors. It is a clear echo of the grace of God for fallen men and women. Like the father in the painting, He’s ready to forgive every sin saturated son and daughter.
You and I have often felt that experience, that disappointment. There has arisen, mayhap [‘perhaps’] a great opportunity for Christian service. Some are sent to the front; some are sent to the middle. But WE are made to lie down in the rear.
Perhaps sickness has come; perhaps poverty has come; perhaps obloquy [‘censure, blame’] has come; in any case we are hindered and we feel sore. We do not see why we should be excluded from a part in the Christian life. It seems like an unjust thing that, seeing we have been allowed to enter the garden, no path should be assigned to us there.
It is a hard thing to be kept in the background at a time of crisis. In the Garden of Gethsemane eight of the eleven disciples were left to do nothing. Jesus went to the front to pray; Peter, James and John went to the middle to watch; the rest sat down in the rear to wait.
Methinks that party in the rear must have murmured. They were IN the garden, but that was all; they had no share in the cultivation of its flowers. It was a time of crisis, a time of storm and stress; and yet they were not suffered to work.
Be still, my soul, it is not as thou deemest! Thou art NOT excluded from a part of the Christian life. Thinkest thou that the garden of the Lord has only a place for those who walk and for those who stand! Nay, it has a spot consecrated to those who are compelled to SIT…….
When that experience comes to thee, remember, thou art not shunted. Remember it is CHRIST that say ‘Sit ye here.’ THY spot in the garden has ALSO been consecrated. It has a special name. It is not ‘the spot of wrestling,’ not ‘the place of watching’, but ‘the place of waiting.’
There are lives that come into this world neither to do great work, nor to bear great burdens, but simply to be; …….they are the flowers of the garden which have had no active mission. They have wreathed no chaplet; they have graced no table; they have gladdened the sight of JESUS. By their mere perfume, by their mere beauty, they have brought Him joy; by the very preservation of their loveliness in the valley they have lifted the Master’s heart. Thou needst not murmur shouldst thou be one of these flowers!”
o
J. R. Miller (1840 – 1912) James Russell Miller was born on March 20, 1840 at Frankfort Springs, Pennsylvania and died on July 2, 1912. Besides authoring over 80 books, booklets, and pamphlets, Dr. J.R. Miller was the Editorial Superintendent of the Presbyterian Board of Publication, and a very active pastor in a succession of churches. He had a strong popularity among that generation of believers.
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This was sent to me from a dear friend; she had taken it from a very old devotional, published in 1925. However, the truths are not dated. They speak to us, long after the writer has gone to heaven.
These principles come to us, especially with our disabilities– mental, emotional and physical. Perhaps they meet us in a hard place, but they can lead us into hope and purpose.
Broken Believers 
