Good Morning Friends,
“The older brother became angry and refused to
go in. His father went and pleaded with him. He answered his father, 'All these
years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. You never gave
me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 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. 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 just the same.
He was lost in the sin of pride, self-righteousness and duty. He wasn’t
enjoying the loving relationship offered by his father. He was serving for what
he hoped to get from it.
When the older son’s sins became evident, 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 the prodigal and
some lost in sins like those of the older son. 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
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