With Open Arms

It's been a couple of days since I've posted...I usually post whatever God has taught me in my day..or days, but these past couple days it's not that God hasn't taught me anything, it's just that I wasn't sure how to get it all on the blog.
SO I'll just jump in.

So I came across Luke 15 the other day in church...I mean, that's what we were talking about..It has three different parables in it: The lost sheep, the lost coin, and the Lost son..

Lost.
That's what we are ,right? Whenever we run away from Jesus??
SO if you look at the parable of the Lost Son..(or the prodigal son), a lot of you have probably heard this parable before..
"There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, Father, give me my share of the estate. So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living." Luke 15:11-13
So basically, this son wasn't happy at home, he wasn't satisfied, and he became greedy. So he went to good-old dad, got what he wanted and peaced out.
This sounds so familiar to me.
Imagine what the Father must have been feeling when the son approached his son, asked for his inheritance, and left..I'm sure He was heartbroken, but He let the son go..
So many times in my life I've caught myself running away from God when things get hard, or, not even that, when I see something that at the moment seems more appealing..
more appealing than being with the Creator of the UNIVERSE...
Right...
SO this son runs of and starts to party..But "After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need." (Luke 15:14)
So he runs away from his dad, and tries to live life HIS way, the way HE wants too..
Well, how well did that work out for him? He began to be in need, which speaks for itself in saying that only what the Father had to offer could satisfy.
Same in our life, right?
But I have such a hard time seeing that.
The son isn't in a very good place now in this point of the story. he's poor, and he ended up landing a job feeding the pigs...
imagine how dirty that pig pen must have been!
When we run away from the Lord, things may seem all right at first..But He is the ONLY thing that supplies our needs completely, so eventually we will BECOME needy. And because every good thing, every blessing, is from the Lord, when we run from Him often enough we will end up in that pig pen, end up in rock bottom.
But the cool thing is, when we hit that point of compete filthiness, when we have run away from the Lord...That's when we remember who God is, and how nothing completely satisfies besides Him! Does that mean that life will be perfect following Christ? Not at all! We are called to a road marked with suffering, but the cool thing is we have the Lord!

If you know the story, then you know how it ends. The son in the pig pen remembers his father, and comes to his senses..and he goes back to his home to see if his father will give him a job "like one of your hired men"
But as soon as the Father catches a glimpse of his son, he EMBRACES him, and welcomes him home...He throws a stinking PARTY for the lost son, even though the son was the one who left his father in the first place!
That's God, right there guys.
We sit here, sinning constantly and turning our backs on Christ daily, and yet the Lord still welcomes us with open arms.
His forgiveness is so overwhelming!
"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.'" Luke 15:4-6