Rembrandt - "Return of the Prodigal"
We can look to God for reward only as a child looks to a father for reward, not because he has deserved a reward but because he knows the illimitable condescension of the love that has made and called him ‘child’…….God rewards only his sons, for all his rewards are rewards of grace, put into the little beggars’ hands.
I found this quote in one of my old notebooks from Seminary and of course I did not write down the author or the book. If anyone know where this might have come from please let me know. I was thinking again of that inigmatic statement found in Luther’s pocket after he had died – “We are beggars it is true”. We are also the children of God. 1 John 3:1 “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. 2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.
Our life as the followers of Christ is the life of a child with a father and our working out of that life is the unself -consciousness of a child.
Good stuff that – a whole life worth.
