Our staff here at the Vineyard in Champaign-Urbana, IL, is now participating in our third Vineyard Bible Institute course since last fall. Dr. Derek Morphew from Cape Town, South Africa, has written much of the VBI curricula, including The Kingdom of God IV, the course now being offered.
Dianne Leman, our co-senior pastor here, is the on-site teacher. Dianne is an outstanding teacher — always supremely well prepared and incredibly insightful. It’s a true delight to sit under her teaching.
Last Wednesday we discussed Jesus’ parables in view of the coming kingdom. Morphew writes: "Repentance is part of our response to the good news that the kingdom is near. The presence of the kingdom must initiate repentance and not vice versa."
I was raised in a church where the initiative for repentance was my responsibility. At least, that’s how it felt. But Morphew indicates that Jesus placed the initiative with God and the dynamic intervention of his reign. In other words, the grace of God is present when the kingdom comes. It is the coming of the kingdom, and the wonderfully kind intervention of God, that leads to repentance.
That’s why I so like this Rembrandt rendition of the Prodigal Son coming back 
home (the parable from Luke 15). Notice the posture of the father — the kind look, the way both hands entirely touch the son’s back, and the way the father allows the son to bury his head into his father’s chest. What a loving father.
The son is sincerely repentant. Look at the worn out shoes on the poor fellow, as he humbly kneels before his father.
And what does the son find in the Father who has run to meet him? Anger? No. Disgust? None. Yelling? Not in the story. In the picture, the father isn’t saying a word but giving understanding, kindness and total forgiveness from a Father who refused to ever turn his back on a wayward boy.
"Yes Father, bring your kingdom today and initiate repentance. Let it come, Father. Thank you, loving Father, for wonderful understanding and acceptance of a son who thought he was a better man than he is and who has so often disappointed you. You just keep breaking into my life. Thank you for loving me just as I am. Praise you, creator and sustainer of life."
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