Welcome back, friends 🤍 Over the next few days, we’re going to continue sitting with this week’s message together through scripture, reflection, prayer, journaling, and practical application. My hope is that these devotionals help us slow down, stay rooted, and carry Sunday’s revelation into everyday life. Let’s dive in!

In this series When Kings and Kingdoms Fall, we’re looking at the destructive cycle of faithful and unfaithful Kings in Israel. This history, recorded for us in scripture, is a sobering reminder that even the best of human leaders fall short of God’s glorious ideal, and the worst of them can bring ruin on entire nations. This week, we’ll look at the wisest king in Israelite history, and we’ll see how wisdom without application is wasteful. As people of Jesus, we should live our lives according to the wisdom that comes from Heaven. Wisdom is available to us, we just need to follow its lead.

Link to this week’s sermon notes HERE!

Once a lie loses its grip, another question often rises quietly in the heart, “If I am truly forgiven, can I really come close again?”

During worship we kept returning to a tender refrain, “no longer strangers, we’re daughters and sons, it’s time to go home, to where we belong.” That is where the Lord meets you today. Not merely with a verdict of acquittal, but with the welcome of a Father. Freedom is not only leaving the grave behind; it is being received into the house without shame.

The story Jesus tells in Luke 15 shows this beautifully! The son who wandered rehearsed his apology on the way back, prepared to return as less than a son. But before he could bargain for a lower place, the father ran to him, embraced him, and restored him openly. The son came home aware of his failure, sure. But the father met him with compassion that was stronger than his disgrace. That is the heart of God toward the repentant. He does not merely tolerate your return. He delights in it.

This is the fatherly welcome your soul needs to believe in. Many believers accept that God forgives in theory, yet still approach Him like hired servants; cautious, distant, and half-hidden. But in Christ, you are not being invited back into probation. You are being restored to relationship. The cross did not simply cancel your debt. It opened the way home. So when inadequacy, abandonment, or memories of wasted years rise up, remember this. The Father is not standing at the door with folded arms.

He is the One who comes running. His welcome is not based on how polished your return looks, but on His mercy and on Jesus.

So today, you can return without hiding. Stop editing your prayer before you bring it to God. Come honestly, not impressively. Tell Him where you have wandered, where you feel ashamed, and where you still fear rejection. Then stay there long enough to receive His welcome. If it helps, pray one simple sentence out loud. “Father, I am coming home as Your child, not as a stranger.”

What part of your heart are you still trying to keep hidden from the Father who already opened His arms?

Heavenly Father, You are gracious, tender, and full of mercy. You are not a distant ruler but a faithful Father who welcomes Your children home with joy. I confess that I often come to You guarded and ashamed. I hide parts of my heart, fearing rejection, and I forget that in Christ I am received as Your child. Thank You for sending Jesus to bring me near. Thank You that His cross not only forgives my sin but restores me to Your house and Your love. Holy Spirit, help me return without hiding today. Teach me to come honestly, receive the Father's welcome, and rest in my place as a son or daughter. Amen.