It is a natural law that gratification should vary according to the level of effort. By equality, we hear both the ability to treat similar situations likewise and the capacity to treat different situations differently. The system of gradation in our societies requires that good effort be honoured and bad effort shunned. When someone that we believe is undeserving still receives the same prize as us, we are ready to riposte.
This is exactly what the older brother of the prodigal son did in Luke 15 from verse 28. He had served his father all his life yet never had he received such honour as was his brother who had willingly gone away to waste their father’s fortune – fortune for which this older brother was constantly on the field. I can imagine the thoughts in his heart when he learnt the reason of the celebration. Why was their father celebrating? Was he explicitly encouraging such behaviour as that? What message would it send to the rest of their community? Was he happy that his son had gone to waste his inheritance? How could he welcome with such warmth a rebellious son who willingly chose to waste his share?
The father’s answer was simple yet calls us believers to understand the depths of God’s love and of God’s grace. “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine”.
“Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine”
Many are the believers who, ever since they believed the Word, have never stepped outside God’s domain anymore. Let’s call those the faithful. The Lord grants them grace to stay within the gates. He gives them all that He has – including His power to resist the devil. Those privileged children of God, though, might be laboring day and night. They sometimes must go through great trials and sacrifice for this Gospel. They labor. Some go through so much trials that it seems like the Lord does not reward their efforts.
Then some fellow Christian falls, a soul wanders astray and they come back to the Lord with repentance. Let’s call this category the repentant ones. Suddenly the faithful see the repentant filled with the Spirit and blessed with gifts of the Spirit. It suddenly looks like the repentant are being blessed far beyond what little portion is allotted to the faithful. And there begins murmurs in the House of God.
Unlike the father who was seeing a dead person who has come back to life, the brother could only see a rebellious child who should no longer be worthy of trust let alone of the father’s warmth. He did not refuse that this prodigal son should still be allowed back home; he simply did not believe he should still be given the same or better treatment.
It is often not explicit, but our brothers, the faithful, have the same sentiment when the repentant has been welcomed back and then fully surrenders and receives the heavenly blessings. In the hearts of the faithful, brother repentant is no longer just brother repentant; he is brother repentant because he had fallen away and because he had disobeyed God’s laws. Faithful finds it hard to fully trust repentant any more. Faithful almost builds a mental conception that once man has gone outside God’s house, whether he comes back and cries, he is no longer entitled to the same, if not more, promises. So, when it so happens that dear brother repentant grows in faith and in strength, our dear brother faithful almost has the feeling that the prodigal son’s brother had.
It is so very easy when we’ve never been outside the gates of the father’s heavenly comfort to sit back and think those who went away do not merit anything better than us anymore. We do this because we have never fallen away so we do not understand the effort it takes for a lost soul to come back home, the courage it takes for a fallen soul to repent and put their life in order. We hold their repentance against them, we try to make them accept an inferior position, we make it so difficult for them to grow back in the Lord. And we do not even realise that we who had stayed in only did so by the grace of God. Because to the faithful the Father says “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.”, we must, before complaining that no such celebration had ever been made for us, remember that to whom He gives much, much is asked. We want celebration? Let’s get to adoption and see if the celebration will not be grandiose. To some God gives His love. To other He gives His grace. Yet He gives it all to us all and when we realise that, we will be more willing to welcome brother repentant back into the House of the Living God.
