The Father’s Heart

"He said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But it was appropriate to celebrate and be glad, for this, your brother, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.'"(Luke 15: 31, 32)

I want us to go to this old parable to get something ‘new’. And by new I mean something we rarely hear from it though repeated in the scriptures.

I want us to concentrate on what this father was telling his obedient son.

You have, actually own, everything I have. You work as hard as I would. But to be like me you need to have a heart like mine.

The prodigal son lost everything that qualified him in works to his father. But in desperation he reconnected to his heart. That is what brought him back. He hoped that his father’s heart had grace, somehow.

The elder brother knew his father as well. But he knew him as a performer and so performed very well, thus pleasing him tremendously. In the process he almost disconnected to his heart.

On the outside he looked fine.

It took the return of the prodigal for the kind of heart he had to be exposed.

What the father told him is simply this.

You have everything I have worked for. Would you use it as I would? Would you use it to serve as I would? Will you inherit my heart as you have my wealth?

A misplaced heart throws tantrums at petty things. A misplaced heart counts the cost of grace and relationships. A misplaced heart takes offense at reconciliation.

Another question I feel made part of the father’s statement was this.

What would you have done had your brother returned after my demise?

Sons work very hard to take after their fathers. Sadly, rarely do we find sons keen to inherit their father’s heart yet that is where their real father resides.

This dutiful son had everything resembling his father except that heart. That is what his father was trying to impact him on.

And we see a lot of that in the scripture.

Remember Abraham wondering whether a slave would be his heir? Why was that yet Lot was not far and even his family could be traced?

That slave was until then the only person who had caught on what drove Abraham. He was the one closest to Abraham’s call. Remember he was the one entrusted with looking for a wife for Isaac? Even Ishmael lost it as concerned Abraham’s heart.

Esau also lost it big time. He worked exceedingly well to come at par with his father but lost it when Isaac’s heart came into play. Remember his marriage (two in fact) was a sorrow to Isaac?

And we see the same when he meets his long lost brother who dispossessed him of the promise. Though Jacob loses much sleep over his reaction, he seemed to have forgotten the whole issue. Remember what he said when Jacob seeks to find favor with him?

I have enough, forgetting that Jacob was doing it for the promise and spiritual heritage.

Imagine thinking about food and things when your opponent is thinking about eternal rewards!

I highly suspect that if it had been Esau who had gone to the foreign land and acquired as much wealth as Jacob had he could simply have settled there permanently since that was his understanding of birthright and blessing.

But nothing could keep Jacob from his spiritual heritage. Remember Laban severally trying to plead and negotiate with him to remain so that they work as partners? Was than not the reason he literally fled, unnoticed?

Esau was content with accessing his father’s wealth. Jacob left his father’s wealth to work on getting his father’s heart.

Remember Abraham sharing his wealth out to the other sons? But he reserved his heart to Isaac.

I think this was the same reason Jacob gave the double portion to Joseph as he realized that he was the one who had his heart. Remember he was the one who took an oath from the whole tribe to ensure that his bones get buried in the land of the promise though he was the one most qualified to be buried in Egypt?

And it flows through scripture.

Saul is fixated with the kingdom as David is content in knowing and obeying God.

And today it is blaring.

How many are valued for their proximity to God’s heart? How many are valued because they are constant in the prayer closet? Mind you I am not talking about prayer experts. I am talking about those whose prayer life you know yet you may have never heard them pray. At least that is what Jesus taught.

Why does someone look for a spiritual opinion and where?

Where do you think you will go if you need spiritual counsel between a pastor who has labored in a slum for decades and one who has grown a mega church in a few years?

Who do we think is blessed between the one being sacked for his faith and the one who has bought a new car? Why?

The truth is that a vast majority of us are fixated with those gifts. And the heart is too demanding to pursue. We are therefore content with the gifts and even build a tabernacle around them at the base of the mountain.

Let Moses go to deal with God’s heart. We will continue waiting for those gifts down here.

The vast concentration of the preaching and teaching of our day is about gifts and things inheritance. Very little, if any, is about our spiritual, heart inheritance.

We are always speaking about what God has done for us. Rarely do we hear anything about what God is doing in us or how much like Him we are becoming as part of our inheritance.

The shocker for many believers is that the judgment seat of Christ will be looking at how close our hearts are to His. It will have nothing to do with what we have accessed or how much we have achieved. In other words, the only inheritance that will be worth anything in the other world is heart inheritance.

Matthew 7: 21 – 23 talks about real performers being sent to hell. Matthew 25: 31 – 46 talks about two categories of people presented with a similar situation, one being rewarded and the other condemned.

For I didn't speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: but this thing I commanded them, saying, Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk you in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you. (Jeremiah 7: 22, 23)

It means that the exam is really on the heart in its response to God’s revelation.

Let me draw a parallel.

I think in the judgment God will look at me and compare me with the image of His Son. That is what judgment is about.

I could be shouting justification from the rooftops. But unless it becomes a part of me in becoming an agent of the same justification to others, I really have no business expecting it.

I could be an expert on grace. But unless grace flows from me to some other undeserving ‘sinners’, I have not accessed it. I can enjoy mercy tremendously, but unless there are others benefitting from mercy flowing out of my heart I really have not accessed the same.

How ready are we to inherit God’s heart through Christ?