The Book of Luke

Imagine your parents give you your fair share of inheritance. After they do this, you leave your home, spend all of the money, and then you are forced to work a job where even the pigs you feed eat better than you. You are hoping in your heart to even get the scraps. The prodigal son truly was in a hopeless place of his own doing. He remembers his father's house. The servants were fed and clothed better than he himself was in this new life circumstance. As the son decides to return home, he could have been met in many ways by his father. To the world, bitterness, resentment, and anger would have been fair reactions of the father! His beloved son left him and threw away all he worked for.

However, this is not the story or the heart of our Heavenly Father. The son is met with open arms! The father rejoices that his son has returned and calls the whole house to bring him food and fine garments. They celebrate his return! The wrongs were erased, the son is forgiven, and the father is overjoyed that his child has returned. We are met in the same way when we return to Jesus. He too gave us the riches of His inheritance in heaven, but many choose to walk away and live in spiritual death. When we receive Christ as Savior, repent, and run to Him, He too celebrates and prepares a place for us in the Father's house, and we are given a new life. Now is the time, this is the season of returning to Christ. Wherever you are, your never too far gone, too far lost, to turn around and come home.

Read Luke 15 and answer the reflection questions to help you process the passage.