Daily Devotional 8-7-26
The Older Brother and the Grace We Resist
Reading: Luke 15:25-32 - “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ “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.’”
Devotional: The older brother never left home, and yet he was just as lost as his younger brother. His lostness was not rebellion but resentment. He had been present in the house for years but had never understood the heart of the father. Religion without grace produces exactly this: a person who has done all the right things and still cannot celebrate when someone else comes home. The father goes out to the older son just as he ran to the younger. Grace pursues both. The question for those of us who have been in church for years is whether we have let grace soften us or whether familiarity has hardened us into the older brother's posture. The party is happening. The invitation is open. The only question is whether you will go in.
Reflection Question: Is there someone in your life whose restoration you have found difficult to celebrate?
Reading: Luke 15:25-32 - “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ “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.’”
Devotional: The older brother never left home, and yet he was just as lost as his younger brother. His lostness was not rebellion but resentment. He had been present in the house for years but had never understood the heart of the father. Religion without grace produces exactly this: a person who has done all the right things and still cannot celebrate when someone else comes home. The father goes out to the older son just as he ran to the younger. Grace pursues both. The question for those of us who have been in church for years is whether we have let grace soften us or whether familiarity has hardened us into the older brother's posture. The party is happening. The invitation is open. The only question is whether you will go in.
Reflection Question: Is there someone in your life whose restoration you have found difficult to celebrate?
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