Luke 15:29-30

Getting Eyes on Grace (Again): Learn to See Clearly Through Comparisons

Author

Nathan Harrison
February 15th, 2024

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!’

Luke 15:29-30

Perhaps the better name for this account is the parable of the lost sons.

  • One son wandered off into the far country of wild living. One son wandered into the nearby field of his own faithfulness.

  • One son thought he had to earn his worth back. One son thought his work determined his worth.

  • One son stared at all he’d done. The other? He stared at all he’d done.

The place of wandering doesn’t really have anything to do with location.

The place of wandering is the place in which we become disillusioned with who we are. It replaces God’s measure of our being with human measure of our doing. The viewpoint of the younger brother doesn’t dare approach the door of God’s celebration, while the viewpoint of the older brother thinks we get to be the bouncer.

When we find ourselves in either of these places, let us remember God goes out and meets both with something else entirely in mind.