Today we’re sharing an excerpt from Lifeway Women’s new Bible study Come Home by Caroline Saunders. Learn more about this impactful new Bible study here!
The word home evokes feelings of deep comfort, intimacy, and belonging. So, sometimes when we speak about God’s story of home, His invitation to us to “come home,” and the new home where we will be with Him, there’s a dissonance. After all, God is holy and perfect—how could sinners like us ever actually be home with Him? How can a holy God be comfortable with people like us? And how can people like us be comfortable with a holy God? Won’t we feel unwanted on some level? Won’t we suspect that He’s a little grossed out by our sinfulness? Won’t He be disappointed in us?
Even if you’re a seasoned Christian, I suspect some part of this resonates with you or at least with someone you know.
Here’s the tension for the Christian: We are not home yet, BUT we have been given a down payment of home. We often feel far away from God, BUT we walk in the double-layered promise of “in Christ” and “Christ in.” We battle against our sin, BUT we know Jesus has conquered it.
In this tension, an accusation rises in our souls: God does not really want to be with us. Often the hardest thing to accept is the truth kids find so easy to sing: Jesus loves me, this I know. Do we?
Yes, the promises sound good. But are we truly loved by the Promise Keeper? Is God someone who does “good stuff ” or is God good? And if God is good, will God be good to me?
We can all imagine what it’s like to live with someone who is nice to you but would prefer that you aren’t there. Maybe we’re afraid God is like that. After all, He alone knows how we really are.
I recently confessed in my journal that I am “selfish, but in a spiritually clever way.” Ouch. The “spiritually clever” is what God alone knows. I know how to trick you—and myself—into thinking I’m a good girl while secretly harboring pride and envy and contempt. I know God knows this too, so I’m sometimes suspicious of Him. Does He actually want me? Does He actually want to live with me? Does He actually love me and like me? It can feel hard to imagine.
This is why the promises of home are so very powerful—because they run deeper than God doing a thing. They are about God offering His very self.
Luke 15:11-32 is the parable of the prodigal son. Verses 15-16 tell us the young man ended up tending pigs, longing to eat pig food because no one would give him anything. Seeing as how Jews consider pigs unclean animals, this was about as low as a Jewish person could go! But verse 17 is a huge turning point in the story. It says about the young man, “When he came to his senses” (CSB) or “But when he came to himself ” (ESV).
It seems evident in verses 21-24 that the son’s perceived “unworthiness” did not matter to the father. He did not relegate the son to a servant role; instead, He honored him and reestablished the younger son as part of the family.
The father’s love defies our imagination: a son deserving shame dared to hope for dutiful acceptance as a servant but was received with joyful celebration as a son!
Revelation 22:14 talks about those who’ve washed their robes and therefore can enter God’s home and live with Him forever. And Revelation 7:14 tells us how robes are washed and made white: “They washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Those who have looked to Jesus in repentance and come to Him, no matter what pigsty they’ve been sitting in, are dressed gloriously and warmly welcomed to this new home.
In Dane Ortlund’s massively influential book Gentle and Lowly, he shows how the Bible reveals Christ’s very nature is to go toward sinners, toward the unclean, toward the ones that anyone else would look at and say “ick!” He says, “It is impossible for the affectionate heart of Christ to be overcelebrated, made too much of, exaggerated.”1
Despite our heads knowing God is good, our hearts sometimes won’t dare to believe that He is good to us. Perhaps we lose sight of God’s goodness when we are distracted by the world, by our stuff, by our own perceived “goodness,” by the shame of our own sinfulness, by our social status, by our circumstances. When our attention from Him is diverted, our trust in Him deteriorates. We are unable to see Him as He actually is, and it gives the enemy an opportunity to whisper doubt in our ears. Whatever the case, too often I find myself hungry to know that He would actually run toward me, embrace me, and welcome me home!
God’s love is not merely theological; it’s personal. His promises of home are not merely intellectually ours; they’re intimately ours. When the loud voice cries out from the throne in Revelation 21:3-4, it is a collective word for God’s people, but it has an individual application for each of God’s children!
3 Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.
Sister, you specifically are loved and welcomed by God. His invitation to “come home” has your very name inscribed on it. He does not invite you for the sake of looking like a good God helping out a poor girl with nowhere to go. The invitation is the natural and beautiful extension of His goodness toward you, His longing to be with you, and His delight in you. Why? Because He loves you. Because through Christ, you are His. And so, He runs toward you with arms wide open.
- Dane Ortland, Gentle and Lowly, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020), 29.
Want to learn more about the Come Home Bible study? Watch the short video below or view a free sample and teaching video clips at lifeway.com/comehome.
Join us for the Online Summer Bible Study
This summer we’re studying Come Home as our online Bible study—starting on Thursday, June 13. You’ll be able to watch the weekly teaching videos for free until August 8, 2024! All you’ll need is a copy of the Bible study book to follow along with the discussion. So join us!
Register for the Come Home Online Bible Study!
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