Luke chapter 15 discusses three lost items: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. Of these three items, the lost son is the only intellectual being, and his absence was deliberate and voluntary.
First and foremost, we see him as a selfish and self-centered man who demands his father’s assets. Soon after obtaining it, he starts his journey to foreign lands and squanders all he had. He becomes a person of perpetual dissatisfaction and, in his own father’s words, dead. But the real story starts from then on, and according to the Scriptures, “he came to himself and said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger”. He came to himself means he came to his senses. As a result, he took a serious resolution that I will ARISE and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and you. That was the beginning of a new life. From there on, we see the lost son as a shining star loved and protected by the father. Our Heavenly Father can brighten any blurred vessel.
The story is told of a graphic designer who had an old daguerreotype brought to him to see if it was possible to restore the picture. It had become so faded and corroded that one could not distinguish the features. He took it to his workroom, worked on it, and the image was restored! A face of beauty and sweetness was revealed where there was only a blurred vision. If a computer expert can restore a likeness that seems hopelessly lost, how much more surely can the Heavenly artist bring back to the soul, blurred and defaced by sin, the image and likeness of God?
The moment we come to Christ, we start to shine because he is the light of the world, and so are we!
