The prodigal son---you know the parable that Jesus tells in Luke 15 about this wayward son who asked for His share of the inheritance early and ran off with it… squandered it… wound up feeding slop to pigs and had an “Aha!” moment where he realized what a mess he had made of his life and he said, “Many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your
hired men.”

Dude—in this month’s Bible Moments I want to challenge you from that story. This is a story not about ONE son, but TWO! Remember the older brother who stayed home — the story goes like this… The repentant, wayward, younger son comes home, and while he is a long way off—the father spots him (which implies that he was always
watching and hoping for this moment!) and he RUNS out to embrace his son — who was lost, but has now come to his senses and returned to the family! “Kill the fatted calf! Bring a fresh robe for my son! Put rings on his fingers! It’s party time! Lets’ celebrate!”

Do you remember the other son… the older brother? He’s bummed! Actually, he’s more than bummed—his ticked off BIG time! “I can’t believe this! I’m the good son! I didn’t run of and sleep with prostitutes and blow my inheritance on wild sinful behavior! And yet you NEVER slaughtered a calf for me or even threw a little part for me! What’s up with that?!”

Do you remember the Father’s response? He said, “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 15:31-32)

We call this story, “The parable of the prodigal son”. Do you know the definition of the word “prodigal”? Webster’s Dictionary uses words like, “profuse or wasteful expenditure , lavish, yielding abundantly, luxuriant.” Ephesians 1:7-8, says, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace 8that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” The key word is LAVISH which means to let it ALL HANG OUT! God gave us ALL HE’S GOT---All of His Love! All of His Grace! All of His mercy—He holds nothing back when we receive Christ---I.e. He is a PRODIGAL in the way he loves us!

Get it? This isn’t a story about ONE lost son and an overjoyed Father—this is a story about TWO LOST SONS, and an awesome—PRODIGAL (Grace lavishing) GOD. The first son becomes lost because he makes some really bad choices and lives reckless life style. The second son is equally lost because he refuses to surrender his own pride and just confess that he too is broken and needs his Father’s love, mercy, grace and forgiveness—instead he withdraws into a self-righteous shell and becomes indignant and defensive. That’s where a religious spirit always goes, “Hey, I’m good! I keep the rules. I would never do that. Etc.” But they miss the point… which is — we’re all broken… period. None of us on our very best day is good enough to earn God’s love or acceptance. It’s ONLY because of Christ’s shed blood and the pure lavish grace of God that we are set free and make right with God.

I'll wrap this up with a story that I believe illustrates this point well:
In one of the apocryphal books, there is a story about Jesus and his disciples. It goes like this. “One day Jesus said to his disciples, ‘I want you to pick up a stone and carry it for me.’ So, they did. Each one grabbed a stone to carry. Peter, being of practical mind reasoned, “Hmmm. Jesus didn’t say anything about how BIG the stone had to be.” So, he grabbed a very small stone. The disciples followed Jesus all morning until lunchtime. Jesus had the disciples sit down and he told them to take out their stones and set then on the ground before them. He turned each stone into bread and said, “Take, eat—this is your lunch.” Well, Peter’s lunch was over very quickly because his stone was so small. After lunch Jesus said, “Now pick up another stone and carry it for me.” Peter thought, “Aha! I get it now.” So, he picked up the BIGGEST rock he could manage to carry and followed Jesus, straining all the way. By suppertime---all of the disciples were very tired, especially Peter, who had been lugging his small boulder around all day. Jesus led the disciples to a riverbank and said, “Throw your stones into the river.” So, they did. Then Jesus said, “Now come follow me.” Peter was very frustrated and his displeasure was obvious. Jesus said, “What’s wrong Peter?” Peter replied, “But, I carried that HUGE rock all that way… for nothing!” Jesus replied, “Did you hear what I asked of you? I asked you to pick up a rock and carry it FOR ME.” Who were you carrying your rock for?"

That’s the message of this parable guys---when we live for ourselves---whether it’s a lifestyle of partying and wasteful living… or self-righteous, religious legalism—we MISS THE POINT that it’s not abut us at all. It’s all about God—loving Him and living for Him. THAT is the path to true, abundant, grace-filled life!

NOTE: The above is basically the April script to my monthly Bible Teaching called "Bible Moments With Pastor Brad." You can listen to the audio for FREE at www.guitarjams.net.

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Pastor Brad
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