Everyone is wrong, everyone is loved, everyone is called to change – Tim Keller
God never ceases to amaze me with how kind, loving and forgiving He is. Just when I think He couldn’t possibly get any more wonderful, I read about or experience His love in a fresh and profound way that blows me away all over again.
Does it happen to you?
It happened to me when I put myself in the shoes of the Father (who represents God the Father) in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32).
As we’ve discovered over the past 6 days, both the brothers in the story distanced themselves from their father, the younger one through his obvious bad behaviour and the older one through his overly good (turned to self-righteous) behaviour.
Yet the father’s response to both sons is the same: incredibly generous, deeply loving and shockingly gracious, especially when you consider the cultural context, where either son’s behaviour would’ve been enough to justify disownment.
Instead, he welcomes them both back into his love and invites them into a relationship with him.
The younger one, who was seemingly more rebellious and morally wrong, can accept his father’s invitation, his forgiveness and the renewed connection. The older one, however, can’t. He doesn’t enter the party, at least not before the story is over.
Tim Keller writes about this:
It may be that Jesus is trying to say that while both forms of the self-salvation project are equally wrong, each one is not equally dangerous. […] Though the older son stayed at home, he was actually more distant and alienated from the father than his brother, because he was blind to his true condition. […]
“How dare you say that?” is how religious people respond if you suggest their relationship with God isn’t right. “I’m there every time the church doors are open.” Jesus says, in effect, “That doesn’t matter.”
The Father is inviting you in for a party. Or, to use a different image, Jesus is standing at the door of your heart and knocking (Revelation 3:20).
Will you answer His invitation, or is there offence in your heart that is keeping you back?
