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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
Jesus continued: “There
was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give
me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.”
“Not long after that,
the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and
there squandered his wealth in wild living.”
Luke 15:11-13
This ends
today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
It’s arguably the most
well known parable that Jesus taught during His ministry, the Parable of the
Prodigal Son. Given its popularity and prominence, I have decided to dissect
the parable into a series to look at how it relates to all people and their
spiritual journey. As we moves through the different stages of the son, you may
see yourself, past or present, through each of the junctures. Maybe you have
yet to advance to the place where the son ended up in his relationship with his
father. If so, that’s fine. The good news is that you have a place to go to be
found when you are lost. That’s the ultimate good news contained within the
course of this illustration.
Let’s now turn to the
words of Jesus as He sets the stage for the mercy, grace, and forgiveness to
come. It gets started with the son getting lost in his poor decisions and the
consequences that followed:
Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one
said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his
property between them.”
“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off
for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.” Luke 15:11-13
I’ve heard many lament
during present times over people who want to get ahead quick, not having to
necessarily earn their way to prosperity. As we see in these opening verses,
the matter existed in biblical times as well.
In this instance, we
find a man who was father to two sons, the youngest of which asked his father
for his share of the estate. Think about that for a moment. The father had most
probably worked hard through his life to leave something behind for his
children, an approach similar to what we see lots of parents do today. Another
similarity between then and now is that normally the inheritance wouldn’t be
allocated until the parent passed. Thus the request of the youngest son was not
only unusual but disrespectful. It was like he was saying:
“Dad, I know you’re not
dead yet but can I have my money now?”
Now, perhaps a lot of
parents would have been angered by this and rebuked their child for asking such
a thing at such an inappropriate time. But this was no ordinary father. Rather,
the father in the parable represents none other than the Heavenly Father, the
Lord God Almighty. Turning back to the scriptures, we read where he (He) gives
the son (representing any of us) what he asked for, dividing the inheritance
between his two children.
Note here that the
father (Father) didn’t query the younger son as to why he wanted the
inheritance or what he would do with it when he got it. No, he gave him his
portion of the wealth and then let him go. The choice as to what the son would
do with it was left up to him.
In other words, he was
able to do his own thing.
So what did he do?
Did he realize the value
of what he was given and put it away so to preserve a better future for himself
and maybe a family he might start some day? Did he use it to make a difference
in the lives of people who were in need, those who didn’t have a fraction of
what he had now?
Not really. He didn’t do
either of these things.
What he did do was allow
his riches to lead him down the road to irresponsible spending and squandering
of his share of the inheritance, money I might add that he hadn’t really earned
himself necessarily unless you count asking his father for the money as work.
Perhaps had he labored to gain what he had, the son’s approach and spending
attitude may have been a lot different. As it was, it was like he was having
fun on house money, house money that we see eventually ran out.
For not long after he
had traveled to a distant country and lived the “vida loca”, the youngest son would
soon find out that his frivolous lifestyle had consequences. Such can be the
case when we choose to do our own thing instead of the thing God would want us
to do.
That’s really the moral
of the story in this first devotion. The world offers us many different ways to
live and if we find ourselves with an abundance of money, then the temptations
can increase exponentially, temptations to spend, spend, spend without any
regard to the possible results of that kind of living. Certainly, there have
been more than a few stories of people who suddenly came into wealth and ended
up broke in short order afterwards, all because they exercised bad judgment in
using the money they had been blessed with.
So how can we avoid
falling into this trap ourselves?
I believe the answer is
pretty simple and it comes down to a matter of will and control.
At least in my own
experience, I have messed things up the most in my life when I decided to try
and take control, when I have tried to do my own thing.
What’s fascinatingly
interesting about this is that the Lord lets me take control when I want to. In
the parable, the father didn’t stop the son from taking the money and assuming
control of what he did with it. Rather, he blessed him and then let the son
decide how things would go, right or wrong. With me and so many others, it’s the
same way today. I feel the Lord lets us try and control things just to show us
how much we mess things up when we do. It leads us to learn that we have to
rely on His will and His will alone.
So what would happen to
the son, now that he has squandered his wealth?
We’ll take a look at
that tomorrow through the second devotion in this series.
See you then.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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