Luke 15:11 – 32

I love reading and teaching from the Parables. When I teach Youth Bible Study, I get excited to teach the parables because there are so many lessons in each of them and when we go through them there’s always a new lesson pulled from them. Without a doubt the Prodigal Son is my favorite because it’s a parable of love, forgiveness, repentance, revelation, and restoration. As I went to read this story to prepare for my devotional I had set in my mind the thought, “You can always go home.” It’s what we always hone in on form this parable, but as I was reading this time, my heart was so grateful for the Father, for My Father’s love for me.

As the story goes, a “certain man” had two sons. The youngest of the sons decided that he wanted to get his inheritance and go live it up and asked his father to give him his share. The father obliged and the son set off to a distant town and wasted everything that his father had given him partying and living wildly. After he’d spent everything he had, a famine came in the land and in order to eat the son had to find work. He was reduced to working in the pig pens and longing to eat the food with the pigs.

Hungry and run down, the son had an epiphany, He was there starving and slopping pigs when everything that he needed was in his father’s house. The son then decided to pick up and go to his father’s house and confess his sin and ask for forgiveness and acceptance.

When he got close to his father’s home he had expectations that his father would not take him back and he’d planned to apologize and tell his father how sorry he was, but the story tells that when the father saw the son coming he ran to meet him and hugged him. The son began to ask for forgiveness, but the father just wanted to celebrate that his son was home.

Although they were celebrating the younger son’s return home, the father had to explain to the older son who did not understand nor agree with the father’s celebration that the celebration of the younger son’s return wasn’t to celebrate what he’d done, but to celebrate because his life had been changed for the better by what had happened to him.

It is in the moments when we’ve messed up, lost out or feel our lowest after we’ve done wrong or made a mistake that we need to know someone is there for us and will not just chastise us for what we’ve done, but love us beyond our mess ups. The Father always wraps us in His arms and loves us no matter what we’ve done. This parable lets us know that we still have consequences, but His grace and His love for us NEVER changes even after we’re done being us.

Prayer:

Lord, thank You for loving me beyond me. Thank You for Your care and for Your forgiveness. Thank You Father that we can always lean on You knowing that You are there for us. God help us to hide Your word and lessons in our hearts as examples of how we should live. Thank You Lord for everything. Lord, I love You. Amen.