May 20 Receive His Favor

Luke 13:34-35 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! 35 Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
 
A wayward child, one who has rejected his parents’ instructions, a Christ-centered life and loving care, is perhaps a father’s and mother’s greatest grief. At a child’s birth, no parent says, “I hope my daughter grows up to be negligent and disobedient.” Our hope and expectation is we will love our children; they will love us; and each one will love God. How sorrowful to look upon a resistant child and say, “I long to gather you to our household again.”
    Here is Jesus at the crest of his ministry. He has spoken repeatedly, Mark 1:38 “Let us go somewhere else — to the nearby villages — so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” He longs for the Jews, “the children of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 14:1) to know John 5:36b “(The work) I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me.” to “save the world through him.” (John 3:17b)
    At the “birth” of man and woman into the world, the pre-incarnate Son of God declared to God’s new son and daughter: Genesis 1:28 “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”  God gave to Adam and Eve a blessed purpose to fulfill creation and rule the earth.
    The blessing, though, was offered, not forced upon them. The Father also gave to the couple permission to decide their own direction – even when it was away from him. When they chose sin’s curse, the grieved Father passionately acted to restore his blessing to mankind. He came to us through the law, the prophets and his incarnation to establish man and woman into his blessed household once again. With longing in his heart, the now incarnate Son of God spoke once more to the Jews, “your house is left to you desolate.”  
    About 40 years after Jesus’ lament, the Lord God sent Rome to destroy Jerusalem, created to be God’s “house” on earth for his people. “The children of the Lord” continued to choose Satan’s curse. They missed God’s blessed love, even as he personally pursued them to come home.
    Are you in God’s house spiritually, dwelling in his blessing? Are you in God’s house physically each week to dwell with his people?
 
Prayer: Lord God, your love is unstoppable; your justice is true; your salvation is forever. Turn mankind’s hearts to dwell in your blessing. In Jesus’ name, amen.