The Gathering

The Gathering – Gatherings are nice. We have just come through “gathering” holidays, those holidays when most of us make considerable effort to connect, or reconnect, with family and friends. We visit those we can and write to those we cannot. We send out letters highlighting life changes and achievements that have been a part of our lives, or our children’s and grand-children’s lives for the past year. Some of us actually read these letters that other people send to us talking about people we have never met, and probably will never meet!

Jeremiah 31:7ff talks about a gathering, one that brings great joy, a gathering from the remote places of the earth. I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them will be the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor; a great throng will return. Yes, Almighty God will find those that are His wherever they have wondered over the course of their lives, whatever their circumstances. He will bring them to Himself. He will not abandon the black sheep of the family because of the things they have done. He will not shut the door and lock them out. All he asks is that we, yes I said we, return joyfully, that we recognize that it is God who leads us back home, that we put away our self-righteousness and stop thinking that this is something we have achieved on our own efforts and by our own might.

As the Prodigal Son returned to the grace of the Father, so shall we. He will strip off the things that label us as slaves and dress us as royalty, as children of the King, as ones who dress who belong to the Kingdom of God. 

Maybe you feel like the Prodigal Son. You might feel that you have not used 2009 to follow the Savior in the way you had planned a year ago. It is time to come home and change clothes. Your Heavenly Father accepts no slaves, only sons and daughters. The feast is prepared. Your clothes are laid out on your own bed. Your Heavenly Father is in the tower watching for your form on the horizon. He knows the way you walk. He knows your little mannerisms. He knows everything there is to know about you. He even knows the very number of the hairs on your head. Be gathered in, in 2010!

Pastor Craig