He will embrace me in his arms (great old hymn)
February 4, 2010 (Thursday)
There is an interesting event recorded in John 6:60-69. After Jesus fed 5,000 with a miraculous meal, he made clear that it was not his intention to keep supplying meals to the multitudes; he offered Himself instead, as the Bread of Life. After he had made that clear, many people turned back and no longer followed him. Jesus then turned to his disciples and asked, “You do not want to leave, too, do you?” Peter answered for all of them, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
This incident reminds us that even today people quit going to church and, for all practical purposes, stop following Jesus. Are you one of these?
Why do people turn back from following Jesus? Sometimes the reason is plain: they never really believed in the first place (John 6:64). They did not lose their salvation; they had not yet been saved. To quote an armchair philosopher, “You cain’t no more lose what you ain’t got than you can come back from where you ain’t never been!”
People can backslide, slowly but surely slipping away from a firm commitment to Christ and gradually taking a downward path (Psalm 1). The prodigal (Luke 15) was in a far country, separated from his family, but he was still his father’s son. He was a disobedient son who needed to come home and ask his father to forgive him. Jesus said he came home and was forgiven. What a beautiful story. Jesus told us this to show how great is the forgiveness of God.
Those who backslide find no peace or rest, because the pleasures of this world do not satisfy. They know deep in their hearts that Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. Only Jesus satisfies the soul. They need to come home to their Heavenly Father. A great hymn expresses the longing of God for every person to walk closely with Jesus: “Come home. Come home. Ye who are weary, come home. Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling, “Oh, sinner, come home.” Everyone needs to respond to God’s desire to forgive by saying, in the words of another old hymn, “I will arise and go to Jesus. He will embrace me in His arms. In the arms of my dear Savior, oh, there are ten thousand charms.”