4 Things You Have in Common with the Prodigal’s Older Brother

God Is Gracious—So We Do Not Have to Prove Ourselves I lay awake long into the night, replaying the conversation in my mind. The next morning, the brooding continued. Our team meeting had developed into what my daughter later described as “war.” Same place, same time, but the night before, a woman in our church had come to me with a profound pastoral crisis. That night I’d slept soundly. How crazy! I could forget a genuine crisis, happy to leave it in God’s hands, but an argument about nothing totally preoccupied me. It was my desire to be vindicated that had consumed me. That’s why I’d played my role in creating the conflict in the first place. I wanted to be proved right, so I fought on. What set me free from my self-centered brooding was the truth that God is gracious. I didn’t need to justify myself. I couldn’t justify myself. But God has graciously justified me through the finished work of Christ. God is “ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Neh. 9:17). The parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 reveals the remarkable grace of God. Asking for your inheritance was tantamount to the younger brother saying, “I wish you were dead...