25 “Now his older son was in the field. As he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the slaves and asked what was happening. 27 The slave replied, ‘Your brother has returned, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he got his son back safe and sound.’ 28 But the older son became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and appealed to him, 29 but he answered his father, ‘Look! These many years I have worked like a slave for you, and I never disobeyed your commands. Yet you never gave me even a goat so that I could celebrate with my friends! 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ 31 Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and everything that belongs to me is yours. 32 It was appropriate to celebrate and be glad, for your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost and is found.’”

REFLECTIONS

Written by Paul Bogg

Consider this: Your brother or sister in Christ wanders away from God and church. You then witness them living a worldly life, indulging in all the luxuries and selfish pleasures that you have said “no” to as a Christian.  And then one day they recognise their wrongdoing and decide with earnest repentance to come back to the Lord. Would you be angry and concerned, or possibly jealous?  Or would you be full of joy and celebrate their repentance and return?

If I'm honest, I probably would be a feeling a mix of all those feelings.  Which is why I think this parable is important for me to read time and time again – because it reminds me of the perspective that the God the Father has.  It’s a perspective that I need to be reminded of, because my heart sometimes feels like it deserves what the Father has given me out of his infinite grace.  And in this parable, the Father says to the older son: “Everything that belongs to me is yours.”  It’s just like in Ephesians 1: 3 where it says that God the Father “has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”

Knowing that, in Christ, I already have everything from God the Father is so important for me.  It reminds me that it’s impossible for me to strive for any more favour because God’s favour already rested upon me when he sent his Son Jesus to die for me and I believed.  It reminds me that I don’t need to be angry or jealous when bad people repent and receive God’s blessings in Christ, because what God has given me was freely given in the first place – I didn’t deserve any of it.  So I am free to love others, free to rejoice when others repent, and free to rest in the goodness and grace of what God has already accomplished in Christ because it is sufficient for me. Let’s thank God together.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul is a member of our Bossley Park morning congregation.