Please take a moment re-read our Scripture of the Month!
Deuteronomy 6:4-9: 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
In Luke 15 Jesus told a parable about a prodigal son who came home.Although he came home, there were still family dynamics that needed to be addressed.There was still healing to do.Just because you are living together under the same roof doesn’t mean you are living as a healthy, loving family unit.The Prodigal Son came home, but the older brother wasn’t happy about it.There was division between the brothers.Maybe that is the reason the younger brother left in the first place.We don’t know for sure.Maybe it WAS a rivalry between the brothers and the younger brother just had to get away.
Here is what I see are the takeaways for us as Christian families from this story:
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If our homes are ever going to come together under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, love must lead the way.
The father never stopped loving the prodigal even though he had betrayed and broken his heart.
The father saw the son coming home and ran to him to welcome him.You know what that says to me?It says that we can never give up hope that our families can be restored.We need to be watchful and prayerful and waiting for God to hear and answer the prayers we pray for our families, and we need to pray about everything.As long as you are praying about your family struggles you are exercising faith and hope that things can change.Don’t stop praying.
Keep watching over the horizon for God to do something to bring your family together in Him.We don’t know how long the younger son was estranged, but the text seems to indicate it was more than a few weeks.You are never without hope as long as you can pray.
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If our homes are ever going to come together under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, prayer must pave the way.
Coming together as families is going to involve love and prayer for sure, but perhaps one of the most healing choices individual family members can make is repentance, being sorry for their part in creating division in the family.In verse 21 the younger brother told his father he was sorry for how he had acted.He understood that how he had behaved was serious.He said that he had sinned against his dad and against heaven. He was accountable not only to his family, but to God for what he had done to the family.Every person in our family is responsible for their own choices.
The father was responsible for how he was going to act when the son came home.The prodigal was responsible for his choices to have left in the first place and chose to humbly repent.The elder brother had a choice to make about how he could help the family come together, and he made a different choice, one that kept the family divided.
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If our homes are ever going to come together under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, each person must realize they are accountable not only to one another, but to God Himself for how we respond to one another.
So, the older brother wasn’t happy about the homecoming celebration for his little brother.Instead of rejoicing that he had come home and that their family was back together, he made it all about himself. He refused to come to the party.He talked about how it wasn’t fair that someone who didn’t follow the rules got a party, when he had stayed home, followed the rules and had never gotten one.
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If our homes are ever going to come together under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, we are going to need to see things from God’s perspective and let grudges go so that healing can come.
Jesus didn’t give us the rest of the story.We don’t hear a “Happily Ever After” message about how the two boys reconciled and became BFF’S and how they lived as one big happy family.They had work to do in order for that to happen.
I don’t know what family you wish yours could be like.When you say, “I’d like to be THAT family,” what is it that is so appealing and inspiring that you want to become like them?But I am encouraging you to be a Christian family.Be THAT family where love leads the way.Be THAT family where prayer paves the way.Be THAT family where each person is accountable not only to the family members but to God for how they act.And be THAT family where grudges go in order that the family can heal.
