How knowing God’s love impacts your family.
Traditionally,Luke 15 has been called the Parable of the Prodigal Son but the truth is this parable is about two prodigals, the younger son who left home and the elder son who stayed at home.
One was immoral and bad and the other was moral and good. One broke all the rules the other followed all the rules.
But both of them were estranged from knowing and experiencing their father’s heart. Both of them were prodigals and needed to come home to their father’s heart.
Not only were they estranged from their father, they were estranged from one another. The parable is not just about each son’s relationship with the father but also their relationship with one another. In the parable, when the younger brother selfishly asks for his inheritance and leaves home, he not only reveals his lack of love for his father but also his lack of love for his elder brother.
And when the elder brother refuses to go after the wayward brother as their culture required, and rejects the father’s encouragement to welcome him back home, it not only reveals a lack of love for his father but also his lack of love for his younger brother. In other words, both brother’s actions not only affected their relationship with their father but also with one another.
Today, we can observe this same truth about the family of God. What happens in our relationship with our Heavenly Father affects our relationships with our brothers and sisters, whether we see it or not. When our heart is established in God’s love for us, our obedience is filled with joy. It has a life-giving effect on our brothers and sisters in Christ.
In the same way, if our love for the Father is weak and we are merely going through the motions, the life giving effect is neutralized. Therefore, our relationship with our Heavenly Father is not independent of our relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. The two are irrevocably intertwined. They are not like two ropes parallel to one another but two ropes braided together as one. Our love for God and our love for our fellow believers are not two separate loves.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 1 John 5:1
In fact, the New Testament goes as far as saying, if you don’t love your brother you cannot love God. Because loving people is the main way we love God.
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. I John 4:7
Ed Elliott's "Good Morning Here Is Your Spiritual Coffee"