In the garden the serpent showed me the fruit With a beauty and fragrance within But I did not know that its razor-sharp seed Lay hidden down under its skin
It glowed with desire and was sweet to the taste With a promise of wisdom and powers But its poison-tipped blade cut right to my heart Leaving sin among withering flowers
Oh where is the healing, and where is the balm For my heart and my soul and my mind? A pathway to carry me all the way home And the Father who I left behind
Then suddenly I saw I was there at the cross And I wept at the wound in His side And the nails and the crown and the noise of the crowd And His blood that flowed down like the tide
I saw in His hand was the husk of that fruit Filled with vinegar and bitter gall That was pressed to the lips of my Savior that He Would taste for the sins of us all Would taste for the sins of us all
They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.” Matthew 27:34 KJV
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness! Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV
God’s love never ceases: It has never changed in the past and will never change in the future. God doesn’t love us more when we succeed or do a good deed, and He doesn’t love us less when we fail, or fall into sin. We come home to God by believing He is loving and willing to accept us. God’s love is like the father’s love in the parable of the prodigal son. Just like that Father, God is still willing to accept us and include us into His family, when we leave our own way of doing things and come home to him.
God’s mercies never come to an end: When God forgives us, He adopts us into His family. He isn’t just being kind to us on a one-time basis. He will not wake up tomorrow and say, “Okay that’s it. The visit is over. Pack your bags and move out!” When God receives us into His family He says, “This my son, was dead, but now he is alive!” You see, even when the prodigal was spiritually dead to his father, he was still considered a son. Now he has come home, that dead relationship became a living one. Our living relationship to God begins by our believing in our Father’s mercy because of the cross of Jesus. The blood of Jesus has paid the penalty of our sins forever and we don’t have to be afraid that God will ever change His mind.
Great is Your Faithfulness: We learn to be faithful to others, by seeing how faithful God has been to us. The prodigal came home thinking that he was going to work for his dad and live in the servant’s quarters. But his father had a different plan. He was given a welcome home party and then invited to come live back home. In that same way, we don’t work for God all week while living in the servant’s quarters and then go visit our dad once a week at His place on Sunday. Just like the father in the parable, God’s plan is for us to wake up every morning in His house, come down to breakfast at His table and spend our day, every day with Him! What an amazing, loving and faithful God we serve!
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? He said to him, Yes, Lord; you know that I love you. He said to him, Feed my lambs. John 21:15 ESV
One old gospel song has a line that says, “Let us have a little talk with Jesus” And when people mention prayer usually we usually start thinking of what we will say in that little talk. But usually, what we really need to do is to let Jesus talk first! In today’s verse, Jesus is telling Peter something He had been trying to say for years. Bur Peter had been so busy talking that Jesus just couldn’t get Him to listen. One time Peter even boasted that He was more faithful than any of the other disciples.
But that same night Peter denied even knowing Jesus three times. If you were Jesus, what would you do? What Jesus did was to come and have a little talk with Peter. Though we might criticize Peter, deep down inside we know that we have all failed just as badly or even worse. But the good news is that Jesus still comes and asks for us start walking with Him again, and He asks the question, “Do you love Me?” Then, when He has our full attention, He gently but firmly commands, “Then go feed My lambs!”
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