The Love of the Father

The Father’s Love

By Apostle Felix

17  And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 

18  I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, 

19  And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. 

Luke 15: 17 – 19

The parable of the prodigal son is a narration of God’s forgiving nature and His unconditional love He has for His people. Here is a delinquent son, who got his inheritance and squandered it all on riotous lifestyle. I believe the young man convinced his father that he had a plan for his inheritance and would like to invest it and see it multiply. Day by day, he talked to his father about the vision he had and how he would like to pursue his dream. His father did not just give the inheritance without been convinced. The young man was convincing, and most likely had a vision for the inheritance. However, the young man’s heart was not ready to handle the kind of inheritance that was given to him. Let us just assume that the inheritance was given in monetary form. Money has the tendency to amplify the state and the content of the heart. The young man had not yet matured enough to handle the kind of money he was given. Instead, the money amplified his immaturity.

The young man left his father’s abode, which was his first mistake. One can leave his father’s physical place, but still remain connected to the father’s counsel. But the young man left his father’s counsel.

14  Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety. 

Proverbs 11: 14

A father is a source of counsel. The prodigal son abandoned the source of counsel and started drawing counsel from his peers. Everyone needs counsel, however, the source of counsel matters. He squandered all his inheritance and found himself deserted by the people that celebrated him when he had the money. He became a destitute and no one wanted to take him in. He found himself taking care of pigs and feeding from the pigs’ food. A pig was an unclean animal in the Old Testament. Jesus was born and lived under the Old Covenant. The situation the young man found himself in was very deplorable for him to eat the food that was meant for pigs. It was a very devastating situation. The young man had gone so low that even pigs’ food became his delicacy. The suffering and the humiliation was unbearabe. One day, he came to his senses.

It dawned on the young man that he had a father, who had more than enough. But the idea of going back home and be a son felt like a far fetched idea. It looked impossible, because the son developed a distorted view of his father’s character. He thought the father treated him as a son because he behaved well. He concluded that his father would not accept him because of his bad behaviour. He then decided to go back home and become a house servant. That sounds familiar. Many reason in the similar fashion. Salvation is not work based, but grace. It is not dependent on one’s good behaviour, but on one perfect work Jesus did. The father saw the son afar off and ran towards him. The father clothed his son with his own coat to cover the son’s shame. He called him, to the surprise of the young man, who had planned to become one of his father’s servants. You have been accepted and loved  by God all by His grace, and He has called you son before you called him father.