The Path Of A Peacemaker A Devotional By P. Brian NobleSampel

“Coming to Our Senses”

A centuries-old parable reveals the same things our modern-day conflicts are made of: tension, pride, ego, wrong thinking—the works.

Both sinners and religious people were listening as Jesus told this story (see vv. 1-2). Why is this important? Because Jesus had a message for both groups, even though they looked at the same incident with different perspectives. 

The sinners heard Jesus saying that the younger son wanted to do life his own way. He wanted his inheritance. He wanted to live sinfully. So the younger son went off and lived life as he wished. When things got tough, he wanted to fix his own problem. His do-it-my-way pride was so strong that he resorted to feeding pigs rather than admit he was wrong and return home.

Then Jesus offered the key phrase, the catalyst that turned the young man’s life around: “But when he came to his senses . . .” On that fulcrum the entire story pivoted. Jesus was teaching the sinners that they had to wake up and return to what they knew was right. 

Meanwhile, the Pharisees and the scribes—the religious people—were not likely relating to the prodigal. After all, they didn’t consider themselves sinners. They were righteous. They related to the older brother. 

They were not happy about the reconciliation in the story. They were unhappy about it because they’d spent their entire lives considering themselves noble and right. But who was the star of Jesus’s prodigal? The wayward brother.

What the older brother had in common with the prodigal son was this: both wanted to live their lives their own way. But only one—the prodigal—came to his senses and repented. The other—the older brother—had no interest in repentance, justice, and mercy. He wanted to live according to his own self-righteous works of the law. This was true as well for the religious people to whom Jesus was telling the story.

How does all this relate to us? If we have a broken relationship with God or with our neighbor, God wants us to come to our senses. He desires that we run to him because he’s running toward us. 

Thinking of the conflict you’re involved in at present, how do you need to come to your senses and run into God’s arms?