Monday January 23, 2017

 

Which category do you think God places you in each time He thinks about you? Historically, the majority of people get the answer to this question entirely wrong. When Jesus dwelt on earth, and during His three years of ministry, rarely a day went by when Jesus was not being followed by multitudes of people. These people, just like us, would categorize themselves in one of two basic groups: good or bad people. Jesus on the other hand, would categorize the multitudes into two completely different groups having absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with their conduct or behavior. Neither the “good people”, nor the “bad people” had the ability to figure out Jesus’ categories.

 

On one occasion, Jesus found Himself surrounded by a group of tax collectors and sinners (bad people). At the same time, a short distance away, teachers of the law and the Pharisees (good people) questioned why Jesus spent so much time with the sinners and so little time with them. Jesus, understanding their confusion, told three stories to help explain to them God’s perspective and categories.

 

One of the stories Jesus told was about a father and his two sons. The younger son in the story asks his father to advance him his inheritance. This posed a problem, the inheritance was supposed to be divided upon the father’s passing. The younger son’s request, in effect said, that as far as he was concerned, his father was dead to him and he no longer wanted to be a part of the family. People in the audience, both the good and the bad people, immediately identified the younger son as being the bad one in the story. Jesus continued with the story, explaining that the son went off to a far land and lost all of his money partying. Upon losing his money and friends, the son went in search of work but the only job he could find was feeding pigs. Things got so bad for the young man and he was so desperate for food but nobody would give him anything to eat, that he wished he could eat the pig’s food.

 

The young man came to his senses and decided to return home in hopes that his dad would hire him as a servant. He returned home and his father seeing him from afar, was filled with compassion and ran to his son and upon reaching him he threw his arms around him and kissed him. The father then said to his servants, clothe my son and cook a feast because we are throwing a party.

 

Meanwhile, the older son, who had been working, upon returning home and seeing all the commotion asked one of the workers to explain what was taking place. The worker explained that his brother had returned and that his father wanted to celebrate. The older brother refused to go to the party. The father came out and begged him to join in the festivities. The older son said I have been the good one; I have done everything you have ever asked me to do yet you have never thrown me a party like this one. Now, everyone in the audience agreed that the older son had been the good one in the story. These however are our categories and not God’s.

 

Jesus concludes the story with the father’s remarks:

 

Luke 15:31-32

 

“You are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

 

We think of people as being in one of two categories, good or bad but these categories are wrong. God sees us in the categories of dead or alive, lost or found. We think in terms of behavior and religion, however when God thinks of us, he puts us into the categories of connected or disconnected. When God thinks about us, He feels compassion and love for us and wants to be relationally connected to us more than anything else.