The Banquet of God

“He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love” (Song of Solomon 2:4, NKJV). In the parable of the prodigal son (see Luke 15:11-31), the father’s joy could not be complete until he was sitting in the banqueting hall with his youngest boy. He had to make sure his son knew he was forgiven, and his sin was wiped out.

If you had looked in the window at that moment, you would have seen a young man who had just come to an understanding of God’s love. He was dancing! There was music, and he was laughing and happy. His father was glad over him, smiling at him. 

He was not under a cloud of fear. He wasn’t listening to the old lies of the enemy: “You’re going to go right back to the pigpen! You are unworthy of such love.” No, he accepted his father’s forgiveness and had obeyed his word to come in and take for himself all that he needed.

He heard his father whisper to him and to his older brother, “All I have is yours. There is no need ever to be hungry again. You never need to be lonely, a pauper, cut off from my storehouse” (see Luke 15:31).

Dear friends, here is the fullness of God’s love, the very heart of it! It is that even in our darkest times, God embraces us, brings us back in and says, “Bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:22-24).

Today we have an even better promise: “To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us” (Ephesians 3:19-20).

Here is God’s love promise to us: “I offer you exceeding, abundant fullness, provision for every crisis, joy throughout your entire life. You may go to the storehouse and claim it all!”