Monday Thought -- July 11, 2011

Good Morning Friends,

“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!' 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'" (Luke 15:28-32)

The story of the prodigal son ends with the encounter of the father with the older son. When the prodigal turned toward home the father ran to meet him. The father sought the prodigal and brought him back into a loving relationship. The prodigal was lost in his sin and the father sought him and brought him back.

The older son was lost, too. He was not lost in the same kinds of sin his younger brother was, but he was lost in sin just the same. He was lost in the sin of pride and self-righteousness and duty. He wasn’t enjoying the loving relationship offered by his father. Instead, he was serving for what he hoped to get from it.

When the older son’s sins became evident in his response to his younger brother, then the father sought him out, too. “So his father went out and pleaded with him.” The father didn’t just want the prodigal to come back into a loving relationship with him, that’s what he wanted for the older son, too.

The father longed for both of his sons to be in a loving relationship with him and in a loving relationship with each other, too.

Apart from a relationship of love with our Father, we are all lost in sin. Some lost in sins similar to those of the prodigal and some lost in sins that look more like those of the older son. But without a loving relationship with the Father we are all lost in sin.

The father longs for all of His children to be in a loving relationship with Him and in a loving relationship with each other, too.

His, by Grace,

Steve