Recognise true
love!
Many people are heart-broken because they were deceived by what
they thought was true love. In this story a young man seemed
to truly love his dad but it certainly wasn't true love!
This father had only one son at home. His other son had gone away
and "squandered his wealth in wild living". 1*. Meanwhile his older brother worked hard
for the father.
One evening as he came in from the fields, "he heard music and
dancing… `Your brother has come,' he was told, `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..."
2*.
Although this son had slaved and obeyed his father he did not
want to be like his father and to love what he loved.
I wonder are you a bit like him today? Perhaps you have slaved to
obey your religion and have even received religious sacraments
often. So maybe you are thinking you deserve a lot more from God
than others who sin a lot and don't even bother about their
religion. 3*.
It is NOT how much a person is willing to slave and work for a
religion that shows if he really loves God! 4*.
You recognise true love for God when a
person, in obedience to Jesus the Saviour, turns in faith to Jesus
to have his sins taken away because he wants to become more and
more like God. 5*.
The "wild" son had come back to his father recognising his father's
great love and kindness and ready and willing to accept it.
6*. Now he was "alive
again" and had true love for his father. He was ready to
prove it by trusting and obeying him. 7*.
But the "proud" son, the older one, despised the father's great
love and kindness. His father went out and pleaded with him. "`My
son, 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.'" 8*.
In the end only one of these two sons was truly changed! The wild
and very sinful one was "alive again" - it was as if he was "born
again" 9*. - to
become more and more like his father. He entered into the joys of
the father's home that were so graciously provided for such an
undeserving person.
But the proud self-righteous son disagreed with the father's loving
kindness and could not enter into the joys of the father's
home.
Many self-righteous religious people are busy working for their
religion because they think they can deserve the father's
acceptance. Don't you be left outside God's Heavenly home because
you assumed you would deserve acceptance with God! God's salvation
cannot be deserved by anyone!
God's forgiveness and salvation are absolutely free and
cannot be deserved or earned! You need to come to Him
now as an undeserving sinner and trust completely in God's most
generous love and mercy. God is ready to forgive you and accept you
as His very own child all because of Jesus. 10*.
Read about the proud son's foolishness in Luke chapter 15, verses
25-32.
Bye for now,
John Nixon, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland. P31HD98. Contact: jnixonj@gmail.com
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Bible quotations from N.I.V.
1Luke 15:13.
2 Luke 15:25-30.
3 Ezekiel 33:31. Matthew
15:8-9.
4 See Matthew 7:21-23.
5 John 14:15-24. 15:10,14.
1st John 5:3. Ephesians 4:20-24.
6 Luke 15:18-19.
7 James 2:24-26. Ephesians
2:8-10.
8 Luke 15:28-32.
9 John 3:3-7. 1:11-13.
10 John 3:16-19. Romans
3:19-26.
