Through the Bible: Lukeনমুনা
A Father’s Tender Love for the Lost
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…” “My son,” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours…
Luke 15:28-29, 31 (NIV)
The Pharisees were offended when Jesus received and ate with sinners. Jesus tenderly responded to the Pharisees with three parables that explained why: when He receives sinners and eats with them, it is like a shepherd seeking and finding a lost sheep and rejoicing; a woman seeking and finding a lost coin and rejoicing; and a father running out to welcome home his rebellious younger son who became humble and repentant.
Jesus likens the Pharisees to the older brother, angry because the father welcomed his rebellious younger brother. Yet, the father displayed tender love. He went out to the older son to plead with him. “My son”, he said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.” The father regarded him as a son, not a slave. Jesus told this parable to convey God’s tender love for the Pharisees.
Our Father reaches out to all who are lost: those who wander like the lost sheep, those who do not even realise it like the lost coin, those who intentionally walk away like the younger son, and those who misunderstand like the older son. He pleads with us to enter a place of grace and fellowship. Will we respond?
Prayer
Father God, I was lost, but You found me. You love us so much that You would forgive us, find us, and wait for us to enter the place of grace and fellowship You offer us. Thank You, Father. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
About this Plan
As the longest book in the New Testament, Luke makes the purpose of his writing clear at the beginning: to investigate and write an account of the Gospel. As a Gentile physician, Luke has deliberately recorded many healing miracles of Jesus and His care for the social outcasts. The Gospel is summarised in this proclamation of Jesus, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
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