Good Morning! I'm your host Lonnie Wibberding, and you are listening to God Notes. A daily devotional podcast sent out from sunny Southern California.
Today is Saturday, December 23, 2023.
Yesterday's story showed the amazing grace and love of God. A son leaves, messes up his life, and the father takes him back. It is a story about God and those who run away from Him.
But there is a second part of the story. There is a second son. This son is not so happy about his brother's return.
Luke 15:25-32 is the rest of the story:
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 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. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 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.’”
The older son was with the father all the time, but didn't understand the father. He was serving the father faithfully, perhaps even trying to earn the fathers love, but never realizing all that the father had was already his.
I wonder how many of us Christians are trying to make God like us better by what we do? As if it's some sort of job, or we are under a contract to be a Christian and do good things?
But could it be we miss the heart of the Father? Even though our Father God appreciates the good we do, He cares a lot more about having a relationship with us than He does about what we do. He wants our love and respect.
He just wants to be with us, and we with Him.
That is the heart of the Father.
May God Bless your day. We'll talk again tomorrow.