Welcome Home: Where the dead can live!

The dead can live (The prodigal son Luke 15:11-32)
In the book of Luke chapter seven there is a miraculous story of how Jesus ministered to a mother who had just lost her son. She did not ask for help or advice from Jesus, He just saw her in her pain and had mercy upon her. He did not come over and pray for her or give her an encouraging word about how one day she would see her son again in heaven, he stopped the funeral procession and told the dead son to get up. The amazing thing about the story is the dead body obeyed the Son of God, rose, and returned to his mothers’ arms. There was a physical resurrection of what everyone knew was dead and the power of God was manifested for everyone to see. In the parable of the prodigal son the father explains the return of the prodigal son home to that of a resurrection of the dead, saying that your brother was dead and is alive again (v. 32). The father equated the son’s separation from him to the equivalent of the son being dead but now that they are reconciled to each other it is as if he is once again alive. Everyone reading this must realize that separation from the Heavenly Father does not equal immediate physical death, but it always equals immediate spiritual death which is far worse. We are created to only live spiritual in the presence of God and when our sin causes a separation, we are all spiritually dead and doomed to eternal separation form the Father.
In Genesis 2:17 God tells Adam and Eve that the day they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that they would die but we know that know they lived physically outside the garden for many years growing the earth’s population. The death that they experienced was a spiritual death where they became separated from God the Father and no longer had direct access to their creator. This is a death that we all know because the scripture says that have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The only hope any of us have of spiritually living again is for the debt we owe for our sins to be paid in full, this payment is death. (Ezekiel 18:20) This is a debt that none of us can pay but is one that our Lord and Savior gladly choose to pay on our behalf. Jesus having no sin came to this earth to lay down His life for our sins, so that we can be restored to the Father. If we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and apply His teachings to our lives, then He sets at the right hand of the Father ever making intercession on our behalf. We have access to the Father through His only begotten son who paid the price for our high crimes against God. The dead can live again, but just like in the story I mention from Luke chapter seven it is going to take a touch from Jesus in our lives for it to be possible. I am glad that He has touched me, and I am now free of spiritual death and the consequences that come with it.