Scripture: Luke 15: 28-32
“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
Scripture Commentary: I once was lost but now I am found.
In the parable of the prodigal son, it is hard for the older brother to accept his younger brother when he returned. Likewise today, it is just as difficult to accept some friends or family members.
People who repent after leading notoriously sinful lives are often held in suspicion; churches are sometimes unwilling to admit them to membership. Instead we should rejoice like the angels in heaven when one of the lost, the unbeliever, repents and turns to God.
The father forgave because he was filled with love.
The older brother’s resentment rendered him just as lost to the father’s love and his younger brother had been.
Don’t let anything keep you from forgiving others. God’s great love for us reaches out and finds sinners no matter why or how they became lost. He found me; He loves you.
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