TUE 18 JUL
A PRODIGAL PROPHET
READ Luke 15:11-32 Jonah 1:3
FOCUS Not long after that, the younger son packed up all he had. Then he left for a country far away. Luke 15:13
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The story of the Prodigal Son is surely the best known of the parables that Jesus taught. The shocking story of the rebellious Jewish kid who not only squandered his family’s wealth with wild living, but ended up snacking with some very un-kosher pigs is familiar. But the focus of the parable eventually turns to the elder brother. This indignant soul is furious with his father for showing grace to his brother, and insists that he has never disobeyed his father’s orders – even as he steadfastly refuses to join the welcome home party! The story of Jonah is a foreshadowing of that parable, because Jonah is both the running prodigal and then the angry, self-righteous elder brother. There’s more than one way to run from God. We can march away and engage in a lifestyle of obvious rebellion, but there’s a more subtle way to hide from the Lord – in the plain sight of graceless religion. A little church attendance here, a commitment to living a decent life there, and we can feel as though we’ve ‘paid our dues’ to God. In so doing, we avoid Jesus altogether. How many people have been successfully inoculated with a small dose of Sunday-only religiosity that makes little or no difference to Monday mornings? And here I find myself challenged: as a ‘professional Christian’, have I settled down into a comfortable, relatively costless faith, that is more a habit than a passion? Let’s commit every day to be faithful followers and friends of Jesus. Prayer: I want to stay close, Jesus, never distanced from You by the madness of sin or the sleep of empty religion. Keep me by Your side. Amen.
