God's love – Seek Grow Love

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is a perennial favorite in Sunday School lessons. As a child, how many of us studied this lesson on God’s forgiveness? I imagine most hands being raised! As adults, how many of us have taught our own children or other youth about redemption through this parable? Again, I can envision many nods of agreement!

Between you and me, I intensely disliked this parable in my youth and early adulthood. Don’t get me wrong; I understood the meaning and value of the parable. Through it, we learn that no mistake can separate us from God’s love and that He will always desire for us to return to the sanctuary of that love.

However, a part of me always sympathized with the older brother. I understood his indignation, albeit misplaced, over the celebration of his wayward younger brother. Can’t you just hear the anger and self-righteousness dripping from his words in verses 29-30? “Lo, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf!”

Minus the part of being given a kid or killing a fatted calf, those words could have been mine. As the youngest of four girls, I understood the older brother’s resistance to the celebration. Throughout my childhood and young adulthood, I strived to be the “good child,” not giving my parents cause for grief, assisting them in old age, and caring for them in sickness. As I devoted my time to my parents’ needs, my sisters’ seeming freedom and my parents’ unconditional love towards them caused my resentment to grow unchecked.

It was during my father’s last months when I had my “Aha” moment. In one of our final conversations, he told me, “We always loved all of you girls. You all just needed our love in different ways.” During our conversation, I realized that my parents’ love for my sisters didn’t diminish their love for me. Love wasn’t meant to be a competition in the way I tried to make it. Love isn’t something to be given to a sole recipient, hoarded and kept from others. In fact, love isn’t something to be earned or gained through works. Love is given freely in spite of ourselves and our works.

I hope the older son of this parable also had an “Aha” moment. Based on the final verses, I’d like to think he did. Read verse 28 in the parable again. When the older brother had his temper tantrum, his father “came out and entreated him.” His father so desired for him to be part of the celebration that he left the party to go find him. Then in verse 31, the father says, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” In his words, we see that the father’s love is multifaceted. Just because he loves one brother and rejoices in his homecoming, doesn’t mean that he loves the other brother any less. In fact, he acknowledges that he appreciates the older brother’s hard work and is already blessing him for his devotion. But the father confirms that he also loves the younger brother and that this love is freely given, in spite of each brother’s work or personality.

If our earthly parents can love all siblings with equal love, imagine how much greater it is with God’s love! In those final verses of the parable, we are reassured that God’s love has room for everyone, whether it is a faithful worker or someone returning to Him. Throughout 1 John 4, we are reminded that “God is love.” In this chapter and in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, we see that the very nature of God is to love and do all things within the scope of His love for us.

We should not possess envy or resentment towards others in their faith journey because we are reminded in 1 John 4:20-21, “If any one says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also.” From now on, as I read the Parable of the Prodigal Son, I’ll be reminded to focus my eyes on the father of the story. Do I rest in the love of God? And, how do I show that love to others?

Throughout your walk this week, how can you share God’s unconditional love with others? Is there someone, like the younger brother, who could use your encouragement as they seek their way to God? Or, is there someone, like the older brother, working hard but needs a gentle reminder that we are saved by faith not works?

~Jen Siderius

Reflection Questions

Focusing on the Father – do you rest in the love of God? And, how do you show that love to others?
Throughout your walk this week, how can you share God’s unconditional love with others? Is there someone, like the younger brother, who could use your encouragement as they seek their way to God? Or, is there someone, like the older brother, working hard but needs a gentle reminder that we are saved by faith not works?
Through Jesus’ parables what do we learn about the heart, motives, purposes, desires, words and actions of his Father?

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To the One God through the One Man

Theme Week – 1 God, 1 Messiah: Romans 5

Old Testament Reading: Deuteronomy 11 & 12

Psalms Reading: Psalm 82

Today we move out of the Gospel accounts into some of Paul’s reasoning in Romans 5. Paul explains / rejoices in how our relationship with Jesus benefits us, including by creating / allowing a relationship with God.

Early in the chapter Paul says some things about suffering and what can be gained from it (v. 3-5) that can remind us of the text near the end of Matthew 16 on those who gain from self-surrender. Though believers have been saved, they have not been saved from all suffering, they are saved from sin and guilt. We are servants of God, and our growth may sometimes depend upon what we experience.

Verse 5 says “the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit”. It is by sharing in God’s love that we can do what God desires. God wants us to open our whole hearts to Him, but that is not the end. Then God can fill us with His own goodness and love and thus permit us to achieve a level of purity and grace which otherwise would be beyond us. But to really achieve this God needed Jesus. The separation between sinful humanity and holy God was too great for God to give the kind of gift He wished to make, until Jesus opened the way.

Those are the terms of the discussion when Paul discusses Jesus’ death in verses 6-11, and it explains why so much of the talk is about God’s credit for Jesus dying (did you notice that part when you were reading the text?). The plan came from God, and at the right time “while we were helpless” God provided the lamb for the sacrifice (Genesis 22:8).

God likes to promise things and have people look forward to them. We will not just live, we will share with Jesus in blessings. Verse 2, in a line that could remind us of John 17:22, says “we exult in hope of the glory of God.” In verse 10 Paul said the believers were no longer enemies but were reconciled to God through the death of Jesus – and “much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life”. In verse 17 Paul said “death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” Getting to live more isn’t just about having more life, but better life. We can’t really grasp at this point what that life will be like, but we know that God thought it worth taking thousands of years to prepare for, and that He let His only son die to bring it about. I bet it will be excellent.

Lord, you are awesome. You are so holy and so merciful that it is hard for me to figure out how you bring them into balance together but somehow you did so that your plan could work and we could live. You wanted more from us and for us, and you made a way to achieve that, and I love you. You saved our lives through your son, Jesus, even though you love him so much and the plan caused him so much pain. And you are reshaping our lives. Please reshape the ways that we treat each other as believers to let us be more of what you desire, and let us provide a stronger witness together for you and your son to the world around us. In the powerful name of your son Jesus I pray these things, Amen.

-Daniel Smead

Question:

On the whole, would you be willing for your life to be more difficult if it meant it were also more purposeful, more useful for God and the people He loves?
Paul several times refers to a “gift”, or a “free gift” in this chapter – do you tend to think of what you expect to receive from God as a gift, or do you think of yourself as owing something?
Verse 11 uses the language “Not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ”. Look up the word “exult.” How frequently, or to what extent, do you think that you do “exult” in God? Is this something you think you should do more? Do you see it as a group activity?
As a reminder, verses 2 and 3 also refer to exulting – how often have you engaged in these types of exulting?
Romans is sometimes thought of as more “theological”. Do you read Romans very often for devotional purposes? It may be that a longer chunk will allow the flow to come across, or perhaps a smaller chunk at a time will allow a morsel of meaning to come through. Thinking about what Paul actually wrote in this chapter, do you find his passion here surprising?

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The Most Excellent Way

* New Testament Reading: 1 Corinthians 13

Psalms Reading: Psalm 60

Old Testament Reading: Numbers Introduction – see below

1 Corinthians 13 (The Love Chapter) actually begins at the end of Chapter 12 with these words, “And now I will show you the most excellent way.” Paul has just wrapped up his lists of Spiritual gifts, reminding us that we, as Christians, are all members of the body of Christ. After telling us that we should desire the higher (more essential or useful) gifts, he states that there is an even better way to be useful to the body. The most excellent way.

Chapter 13 begins with an IF. IF I am great, IF I can do great things, IF I can understand great things, IF I make great sacrifices….

What are you really good at? Known for? Everyone in our church knows Todd is phenomenal with numbers. He has often said it’s too bad he can’t make a living impressing people with his quick math skills. Everyone is good at something, but that might not matter in the big picture.

The IF part in the first three verses is followed each time with “but have not love”. You can be the greatest at everything, but if you don’t have love you are “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal”, “nothing’, “gain nothing”. That’s pretty powerful. What motivates us to do what we do obviously matters a great deal. Paul is trying to communicate with us the overriding importance of love.

You’ve probably heard verses 4-8a read at a wedding. A beautiful description of how to love. One that we cannot fully accomplish in our humanity. Pulling from different translations, here is the description of true love:

Love is: patient; kind; rejoices with the truth; bears all things; believes all things; hopes all things; endures all things; it always protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres; it never ends or fails.

Love is not: it does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant, proud, or rude; it does not insist on its own way; it is not self-seeking; it is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing.

Love won’t end. Spiritual gifts, and our need for them will end. Prophecies will end. Speaking in tongues will end. Knowledge will end. Love will not end.

Keep in mind as you read these lists that God loves us like that. God loves YOU like that. John 13:34-35 says, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” We are to love others how God loves us. It’s what shows the world we are His.

-Todd and Amy Blanchard