During His ministry on Earth, Jesus often used parables, or stories, to relay a message to his followers. He would use these parables to make a subject more relatable to people. One of my favorite parables has always been the parable of the prodigal, or lost, son. Maybe it is because I can very much relate to the lost son in the story, or perhaps it is simply because of the deep message of love and forgiveness.

This parable is one that is widely used and familiar to both Christian believers and non-believers alike. If you are not familiar with the story, I will give you a brief summary. A man had two sons. The younger of the sons asked his father for his share of the inheritance before he died. The father granted his son’s wish, and the son in return went and squandered his inheritance on wild living and drunkenness. Then hard times came upon the son when all the money was gone and a famine hit the land. He hired himself out to land owners in a far off country who made him feed the pigs. He finally came to his senses and realized that he would be better off going back to his father’s land and asking to be made a servant. At least then he would have food and shelter.

When his father saw him returning, he ran down the road to greet him with joy. He showered him with the finest clothing and instructed his servants to kill the fattened calf and prepare a feast. When his other son heard what was going on, he became angry. He couldn’t understand why his father would allow his brother who had disgraced his whole family in such a way to come back into the house, let alone to give him a party. The father replied, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.” Luke 15:31-32

The most important thing to gain from this parable is that God is like the father in the story, and we are all like the youngest son. We are all sinners. There is not a single person on this planet who has not sinned. The only perfect sinless person was Jesus. Now, we may not all be sinners to the extent of the son, but that doesn’t matter. We all fall short of the glory of God, and we all must ask for forgiveness. However, the beauty of it all is that God our heavenly father, just like the father in the story, is waiting for us with open arms ready and willing to forgive us. We are all children of God, and he loves each and every one of us. He does not want us to fall into eternal punishment. He wants us to be saved! That is why he sent his son Jesus! Take these examples from scripture.

“The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” Psalm 145:8

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” Ephesians 1:7

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

I want to take a deeper look now into this parable of the lost son. I want you to imagine for a moment the three main characters of the story. We have the father, the younger disobedient son, and the older son. I think that there is a lot we can learn from looking at the parable from all three perspectives.

First, let’s take a look at the younger son. This is the character that I feel the majority of us can relate to the most. We’ve all strayed somehow from the grace of God. In particular, I can very much relate to the son. As a young adult I fell in with the wrong crowd of people. I moved out of my parents’ house and essentially squandered all that I had. I quickly went through all my money and I threw away the love and relationship I had with my family. I was blind to my actions, and I couldn’t realize how much what I did was hurting others. I only wanted to please my so-called friends. When everything hit rock bottom and all my friends deserted me, I was left much like the lost son in the parable with nothing. I realized how much I had messed up, and I knew my only hope was to return home and hope and pray for forgiveness from my family.

Luckily for me I not only have a forgiving heavenly Father, but an earthly one as well. I fully expected my parents to tell me to fend for myself, but instead, just like the story, they welcomed me back with open arms. I did nothing to deserve this forgiveness. It was given to me out of love. When we mess up, one of the hardest things to do is to admit we are wrong and ask for forgiveness. Sometimes that means apologizing to another person, and it always means confessing and asking for forgiveness from God. Grace is one of the most important gifts that we have from God, but we must be able to humble ourselves. Sometimes it can come fairly easy, yet other times it takes reducing ourselves to feeding pigs. Just remember that no sin is too big for God to forgive.

Now I want to take a minute to shift the focus off of the son and onto the father. Of course we’ve already learned how the father in the story represents God, but how can we relate ourselves to the father? How can we make ourselves like the father? Sometimes we are not the ones who have done wrong; sometimes we are the ones who have been hurt. It’s not always easy to forgive someone else, especially when that person is someone very close to us who has betrayed our trust. Scripture, however, teaches us that we must love and forgive others.

“…forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Matthew 6:12

“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.” Leviticus 19:18

When someone wrongs us or betrays our trust it hurts. It is so much easier to write that person out of our lives than to deal with the pain that sometimes comes with allowing them back into our lives. Doing the right thing, however, is not always easy. God calls us to forgive our neighbor, just as He forgives us. God has extended this gift to us, and we need to pay it forward.

There will be times when the person who hurt you does not ask for forgiveness, or they may not even accept your forgiveness and that is ok. We have to realize that by carrying around a grudge we put a giant weight on our heart. To walk around with bitterness and resentment only drags us down. In this way, we need to strive to be like our Father. Sometimes just seeing your love and forgiveness, just being accepted, is all a person needs to pull them out of a dark place in their lives.

For those of you who are parents, this is even more important. It is my goal as a parent to show my child unconditional love. I know that she is not perfect and at some point in her life she will mess up. It’s my job to encourage her and let her know that she will always be able to come home. She will always be greeted with loving arms. No matter if she hurts me, or if she simply falls on hard times. I LOVE this new song by the band NEEDTOBREATHE! It holds such a powerful message. (Disclaimer: you might want to have your tissues ready!)

Now let’s look at the third character in the parable, the older son. When his brother returns, the older son meets him with anger and resentment. He does not understand why his father would forgive him. He will probably never be happy with the return of his brother. It is almost as if he feels jealousy toward his brother. This is the example that we should try not to be like.

When we have been wronged, or when someone we love has been wronged, it is not always easy to forgive. Sometimes we can even get angry when someone else forgives this person. We might say something like, “This person doesn’t deserve your forgiveness.”, or “They deserve everything they have coming to them.” But, this is not how Jesus wants us to act. We are told that we must forgive our neighbors, just as God forgives us.

Even when it is hard, we must try our best to forgive others. We must remember that God, the ultimate judge, will judge their hearts in the end. Think of the gift of grace that God has given to us. How can we withhold that same grace to others? This reminds me of another parable, the parable of the unmerciful servant. In this story, the servant’s master forgives the servant of his debt to him, but then the servant went and had another man thrown in jail that owed him money.

The ending of the parable says this, “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’” Matthew 18: 32-33

Again this tells us how we are to treat others. Forgive as we are forgiven. So as we reflect on this parable of the prodigal son, let us remember to be like God the Father who extends his grace. Let us also be like the prodigal son and humble ourselves, confess our sins and ask for forgiveness, both from God and from those whom we have hurt. Do not, however, be like the jealous brother and hold bitterness against others. Be glad and rejoice when the one who is lost is found!

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Can I pray for you? Send me a message at molly@savedbygrace.blog