Dear Pilgrim, have you received the embrace of your Father?

Prodigal Son by Charlie Mackesy

Dear Pilgrim, have you received the embrace of your Father? Have you received the comfort, the hope, the feeling of safety and the encouragement that only the warmth of His embrace can give you?

O Pilgrim, it is one thing to have been made aware that His embrace is there for you. It is another thing entirely to receive it. It is one thing to know that the love the Father has lavished on us is so great that we should be called children of God (1 John 3:1). It is another thing entirely to know that this is what you are, to have experienced the loving embrace that only a Father can give to His child. It is one thing to know that the Father loves you because you have loved His Son and have believed that He came from God (John 16:27). It is another thing entirely to have rested your head against the breast of your Father as His arms reach around you and hold you close.

Pilgrim, do not allow timidity to hold you back from your Father’s embrace. As you approach your Father, you are coming not in your own righteousness, but clothed in the righteousness of His Son. For this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10). In Him and through faith in Him we may approach God with freedom and confidence (Ephesians 3:12)! We have the confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus! Jacob approached his father to obtain a blessing from him, covered by his brother’s robe. When his father caught the smell of his clothes, he proceeded to pour out his blessing upon his son. Pilgrim, what a picture this is for us of how we approach our heavenly Father!

Pilgrim, maybe it has been so many years since you have ever known what a father’s embrace feels like, maybe you have experienced so much loss, so much heartache and pain, that you dare not come close for fear of being overwhelmed. O precious Pilgrim, will you come with me to Goshen?

Goshen, in Egypt – the place to which God had sent Joseph, to preserve a remnant and to save lives by a great deliverance. A place of separation from his father with whom he had enjoyed a special love, for he was the beloved son of his father. This separation had lasted many years, and had caused much pain for Joseph. But what the enemy had intended for harm, God intended for good. For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). And God arranged for the beloved son to be reunited with his father. As Jacob travelled to Goshen, Joseph had his chariot made ready and went to meet him. O Pilgrim, how do you think Joseph was feeling, as he went to meet his father after all those years? All those emotions flooding through him…and as he finally set eyes upon his dearly loved father, as he presented himself before his father, his emotions poured out of him and he fell on his father’s neck and wept for a long time (Genesis 46:29). Oh, praise the living God for bringing about such a reconciliation!

Do you see, Pilgrim, how far the father travelled to be reconciled to his son? Jacob travelled all the way from the land of Canaan to Goshen for this reconciliation. It was not Joseph who travelled to Canaan, rather, his father came to him. O Pilgrim, do you see? Just like in the parable of the prodigal son, as soon as the son got up and went to his father, even whilst he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. His father had been waiting, longing, for his return all those years. And as soon as he saw him, he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him (Luke 15:20)! Pilgrim, it was the father who ran to the son! Oh, what a God!

Yet, Pilgrim, it can still be possible to know all this and yet still to have not experienced it. For it requires the work of the Holy Spirit deep in our hearts, it requires God to send the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father!” (Gal 4:6). And when this happens, dear Pilgrim, oh! The assurance He brings! The confidence He brings! The hope He brings! The warmth of His embrace is truly like no other!

May we cry out to Him that the Spirit never ceases to cry out, “Abba, Father!” from within our hearts, so that we may truly understand what it means to be a child of God, and may the Spirit Himself testify with our spirits that we are God’s children (Romans 8:16). May we then be able to declare that “His right arm embraces me” (Song of Songs 2:6), and live in the confidence that this brings!