Love Endures Forever

Introduction
How do you know if someone is really a Christian?  What evidence that proves it?

If you asked 10 different people, you might get 10 different answers.

Some might say, “You know someone’s a real Christian if they pray for someone and actually heal them or prophecy about the future and have it come true.  That’s a real Christian.”

Others might say, “A real Christian reads their Bible and knows what it all means.  They can explain how Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins. They are a real Christian because they know Christian doctrine.”

Another person might argue, “No.  It all comes down to faith.  It is only by faith that a person is a real Christian.”

Yet another person might retort, “Yeah, but what about good works?  People must do good and give to the poor and help the needy.  That shows they’re a real Christian.”

Someone else would say, “Yeah but what about the martyrs?  Someone who dies for their faith, surely that’s undisputable evidence they are a real Christian—the best Christian of all.”

The members of the 1^st Church of Corinth were arguing about these things.  In fact, some were saying, “I’m a better Christian than you, because I can do this or I’ve done that…”  And in answer, Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians, and we find a good summary of Paul's response in 13:1-3.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3
¹ If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. ³ If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

So Paul says it’s not supernatural power, it’s not knowledge of the Bible, it’s not doing good or being good, it’s not even dying as a martyr for your faith that proves you’re a Christian. Paul says, it all comes down to love.  Love is what proves you are truly a Christian.  When the love of God lives in you and you love others, that’s proof you are a Christian.

But the kind of love we’re talking about is not necessarily the type of love the world talks about.  So Paul goes on to explain what God’s love is like—the kind of love we are to have and show.  And today, I want to finish our series on Paul’s words about love from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.  Today, we learn that love endures forever.

1 Corinthians 13:1-7
⁴ Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ⁵ or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. ⁶ It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ⁷ Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Endurance
One of my church members, Kate Roberts, achieved a personal record at her cross country race this weekend in South Carolina.  Cross country racing is an endurance sport.  The runners push themselves to their physical limits racing long distances, competing as a team.  They train their bodies everyday to endure the pain and strain of physical exhaustion from running 3 to 6 miles as fast as they can.  I think Kate was able to run 3.1 miles in less than 20 minutes this weekend.

Endurance is the ability to withstand hardship or adversity.  How in the world does endurance belong in a definition of love?  If you are young and "in love" you tend to focus on all the ways the person you "love" makes you feel good.  When you've been married a long time, you understand much better about the "endurance" element of love.

Of course, I hope by now in this series, you understand that real love (God’s love) is not about how someone makes us feel.  Love is not a mere emotion or a pleasure we derive because we like being around someone.  Love is a gift we give to others regardless of whether we get anything at all in return.  And sometimes love—real love—has to endure many things we don’t like about others.

As a parent, I can tell you I didn’t enjoy it at all the time I took my young kids to see a movie and one of them got sick and threw up on me.  And I had to take one kid to the bathroom and get her cleaned up.  I had a change of clothes for her in the diaper bag, but not for me!  So I had to wear that filth all the way home while trying to comfort a sick child.  Yeah, that was not fun and I didn’t like it at all.  But I loved my child and cared for her.  I “endured” the disgust and discomfort of “wearing” vomit soaked clothing until I could gather up my kids and get them home, cleaned up, and then clean myself up.

But that was just a hour or so of endurance.  I think about my own Mom’s enduring love over the years with me and my siblings.  I know we have all done many things to disappoint her and even break her heart at times.  Yet she has endured.  Now, as my mother is growing older and her health is declining, we are taking loving care of her more and more (especially my older brother and younger sister, because they live closest to her).

Redefining Romantic Love
As I have told you in previous blogs, 1 Corinthians 13 wasn’t originally written about the romantic love between a husband and wife.  Yet this passage is often read at weddings, because it is such relevant advice for newlyweds. 

Our society is infatuated with the concept of romantic love.  Unfortunately, popular culture—through movies and music—has degraded the idea of romantic love to be all about how a person makes us feel.  We have taken the greatest godly virtue of all and turned it upside down.  Love in the world is not about selfless sacrifice, but about deriving pleasure at the expense of the person we “love”.

It is no wonder that so many people experience broken relationships, broken marriages, and are extremely confused and scarred when it comes to romantic love.  Our culture has created an idealized fantasy about love that does not exist, and when people fail to achieve or maintain the “feeling” of love, they feel cheated, become disillusioned, are broken-hearted, and wonder “why can’t I just find true love like everyone else?”  

Can you imagine how it would revolutionize the world and our romantic relationships if the prevailing notion of love became the biblical view of love?  If it wasn’t about how another person made you feel, but about how we gave ourselves to one another sacrificially? 

Ironically, you are more likely to find “feelings” of love more often when you stop chasing them.  When you give yourself to your spouse sacrificially, you are more likely to have romantic feelings.   And when the husband and wife are both loving each other sacrificially, they will both likely feel more intense attraction to each other. 

God’s Enduring Love
Now I want you to consider the never-ending, enduring eternal love of God for the world.
God created the universe and everything in it—the stars in the sky, the land and the sea, the plants and animals and us.  In sacrificial love, God gave us life.

When humanity broke God’s heart by turning against Him, He didn't give up; God continues to love us because His love endures forever..  God made ways to protect us—even protecting us the best He could from our own sin, while still allowing us the freedom to choose how we live.  People often get frustrated or angry with God because bad things happen to them or God.  God didn't cause those bad things.  We cause them by our sin (or they were caused because humanity has been wrecking God's perfect creation for thousands of years).  It is a miracle of God's love that we are still here and haven't completely destroyed ourselves and that God has still preserved our freedom to choose how we live.  Unfortunately, our choices cause a lot of hurt and suffering, but God still preserves us through HIs enduring love.

4,000 years ago, God chose a man of faith named Abraham to begin the process of saving the world—even saving you.  4,000 years ago.  Think about how long ago that is.  The American Revolution was 245 years ago.  That seems like a long time to a lot of us, but it is only a blip on the timeline of God's love story told in the Bible.  4,000 years ago, God was thinking about you and working to save you when He called Abraham to begin the rescue mission for humanity.

Even when Abraham’s descendants were slaves in Egypt 600 years after Abraham, God's love endured and He kept working through the Israelites to save the world.  God used Moses to deliver the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

3,000 years ago, God made David the king of Israel and said, “I will raise up one of your descendants… I will secure his royal throne forever.” (2 Samuel 7:12-13)  God was talking about Jesus, who is David's great great great... grandson.

Jesus was born 2,000 years ago.  He lived as the perfect lamb of God, without sin or blemish.  He gave his life sacrificially to atone for our sin (showing God’s perfect, unconditional love for you and me).

Through all of these thousands of years, God’s love endures.  We've given God a million reasons to give up on us, but He hasn't and He won't.  God is hoping beyond hope that people will finally hear Him calling and turn from their sins, receive His love, and be saved.

And God is hoping beyond hope that we will all start to love God and love our neighbor just as Jesus did and that our love will endure in every circumstance because real love endures forever.

My mission, the reason I’ve devoted my life to work as a pastor, is so that more and more people will turn to God and receive His love and in turn love others the way God loves us.

1 Corinthians 13:8 says, “Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!”
All the things in this world we think are so important now will pass away. 
It won’t matter what kind of clothes we wear, or the car we drive, or which house we lived in.
It won’t matter which flag we saluted or whether we were democrat or republican.
It won’t even matter if the Braves won the world series in 2021.

1 Corinthians 13:12-13 says, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that [we] know now is partial and incomplete, but then [we] will know everything completely, just as God now knows [us] completely. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.”

Love Rejoices With the the Truth

Introduction
We’ve been studying 1 Corinthians 13.  Last week, Rev. Donna Lucas was gracious to continue the theme of our series while I was away celebrating my son’s marriage, preaching “Love Keeps No Record of Wrongs”.  It was a wonderful weekend celebrating their love.

1 Corinthians 13 is popularly known as the “love chapter”.  It is the number one scripture read at weddings and it certainly does give invaluable advice to a husband and wife about how they should love each other.  However, this chapter was not originally written for weddings or newlyweds.  It isn't specifically about romantic love at all.  1 Corinthians was written to correct a dysfunctional church.

The Corinthian church had a lot of serious problems.  There were power struggles and jealousy among the members. Some were claiming spiritual superiority and expecting special treatment.  Some were abusing the sacrament of Holy Communion and getting drunk on the communion wine while others were being left out of the meal altogether.  In Corinthians 5, we read that one Corinthian man was sleeping with his father’s wife (his stepmother) and the church ignored his sexual immorality.  Paul writes, “You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame. And you should remove this man from your fellowship.”

Paul wrote the first letter to the Corinthians to reprimand the church and try and bring them back to authentic Christianity.  The letter comes to a climax in the 13^th chapter as Paul explains that the most important thing is love.  It all comes down to love.  But the kind of love we’re talking about is not some wishy washy, warm and fuzzy kind of love.  It’s a deep, sacrificial love—the way God loves us, a love demonstrated best by Christ when He died for sinners on the cross.  Let's review 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
¹ Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ⁵ or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. ⁶ It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ⁷ Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Love Does Not Rejoice About Injustice
The NLT says, love “does not rejoice about injustice”.  The NIV translates it “Love does not delight in evil…”  The world today has a warped idea about “Love”.  People today value tolerance, so naturally they like the idea of love being patient and kind.  But, most people would prefer to chop off that part that says love does not delight in evil. Biblical love holds people accountable to God’s Holy Truth. 

A big part of the problem is how people define what is evil.  The world has one standard, and that standard changes from generation to generation.  Things that were considered evil when I was a child are accepted and even praised as  good and wholesome today.  However, God’s standards of good and evil never change and they are preserved in God’s Holy Bible. 

Christian love holds people accountable to God’s standards of good and evil.  That is why the Apostle Paul can write to the Corinthian church about love and also say in the same letter: “It isn’t right for a man to sleep with his stepmother.  You need to remove this man from your church if he won’t repent of his sin.”

Real love doesn’t put up with evil and injustice; it holds people accountable.   

We see a lot of evil and injustice in our world today.  And Christians who are loved by God in Christ and who also profess to love God and love our neighbors ought to call out evil and injustice whenever we see it.   

We should start with ourselves--as individuals and then as the Church.  Jesus once said, “Why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?” (Matthew 7:3)  So where do we see evil injustice in our own lives?  Don’t let pointing the finger at someone else’s sin be an excuse to ignore your own.  Examine yourself.  Ask the Lord to reveal where you have fallen short.  Repent of your sin and ask the Holy Spirit to reform you. 

On the other hand, don’t let your own imperfection be an excuse to rejoice about evil and injustice in the world either. Some will shy away from calling sin “sin” because they are too ashamed of their own sin to say anything to someone else.  So they keep silent and their silence condones what is evil. 

Love Rejoices Whenever The Truth Wins Out
But love doesn’t only go around telling people how wrong they are.  Love “rejoices” when the truth wins out.  Love is happy when people finally get it.  Love is overjoyed when it sees someone earnestly repent and turn to God.  Love celebrates with a feast when a prodigal son comes home and reconciles with his estranged father.  Love looks for the good and celebrates it every chance it gets!

Jesus is the very best example of true love.  I guess this is because God is love and Jesus is God so Jesus is Love in Love’s purest form.  Jesus never condoned evil.  Yet, in love, Jesus knew how to call out evil and call people to repentance and also to rejoice whenever the Truth won.  

I want to close with a story from Jesus’ life that I think illustrates how love "does not delight in evil but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.”  It comes from Luke 7:36-50. 

Luke 7:36-38

³⁶ One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. ³⁷ When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. ³⁸ Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.

I learned in Sunday school a couple months ago that this jar of perfume was probably used by the woman as part of her “trade”.  Her trade was probably the oldest profession (prostitution).  If so, she would want to use perfume to make herself more attractive to her clients.  When Matthew and Mark tell this story in their Gospels, they say the woman smashed the jar of perfume—symbolic showing she was never going back to her sinful life.

Luke 7:39-48
³⁹ When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!”

⁴⁰ Then Jesus answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.”

“Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied.

41 Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people—500 pieces of silver to one and 50 pieces to the other. 42 But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?”

⁴³ Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”
“That’s right,” Jesus said. 44 Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume.

⁴⁷ “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” ⁴⁸ Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”

When we have the privilege of celebrating the sacrament of Holy Communion, we rejoice that the Truth has won.  Jesus, gave His life so that we can repent of our sins and return to God as Lord.  When we accept God as rightful Lord of our life and surrender to His will, we are saved by the sacrificial love of Christ.

Examine yourself now, and ask, “Lord, show me the sin for which I need to repent today so that I may come to Your table and celebrate how Your Truth has won the victory in my life today.”  

May the Lord show you and may you repent and follow Christ. Amen.

What the World Needs Now is Love (Love is Patient)

Introduction
One of the most cherished words in our world today is also one of the most misunderstood and misused words.  Love.  In 1965, Jackie DeShannon sang, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.  It's the only thing that there's just too little of.”  

I do believe love would solve the majority of our problems if we could learn to love one another.  This is the biblical message of the Christian faith.  However, the love that will change our world for the better must be the true kind of love that's defined by the Bible, the kind of love Jesus demonstrated as the core of God’s character.  In this message series over the next few weeks, I want to study the elements of the true, biblical love God has for us and that we are called to have for God and each other. 

True love, the kind of love God offers and that the world needs now, is clearly defined in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.  You may be familiar with this famous passage.  It is often read at weddings to teach newlyweds how to love one another.  However, this passage was not originally intended for weddings.  The Apostle Paul wrote this passage to reprimand the Corinthian church for all their bickering, division, and strife and to teach them how to treat one another. 

When I think of how divided our world is today, how we argue with one another over politics and vaccinations and wearing or not wearing masks, I think these are words about love we need more than ever.  What the world needs now, is love, sweet love.  It’s the only thing, that there’s just too little of.  But the kind of love we need, is written in God’s Word in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. 

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful,
and endures through every circumstance.

Love is Patient
Today, I want to focus on only the first part of the first sentence of verse 4 – Love is patient. 

Patience is the ability to tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.  True patience means having a good, loving attitude even in the midst delay, trouble, suffering.  It is a weak, feeble patience that is constantly complaining and crying “woe is me!” the whole time they endure trouble.  A person with real patience has a good, positive attitude while they endure. 

Patience is an essential element of real Christian love.  It is the patience Jesus demonstrated on the cross as he endured the suffering and shame of crucifixion.  As the angry crowd mocked him and spat upon him, Jesus prayed for His enemies, “Father, please forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)  Jesus was able to be patient because Jesus is God and God is love and love is patient.  Jesus told a parable about God's patient, unconditional love.

Luke 15:11-12
11 To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them
this story: “A man had two sons. 12 The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.

God is Patient
The father of the story is incredibly patient.  He agrees to his son's request even though the son basically said, "I wish you were already dead so I could have my inheritance now."  You see, this callous son doesn't really see his father as a human being worthy of love and respect, with whom he wants a relationship. To the son, the father is just a means to an end--something to use up and then leave.  

Many people see God like that.  God is merely there to serve our needs--to give us what we want or what we need or help us out of trouble.  We don't see God as someone worthy of our respect and love and adoration.  How rude we are with God! 

God is extremely patient with us.  Right now, I feel like people simply are not focused on God. Going to church is not a priority for people in our world. While Christians in Afghanistan risk there lives just to believe in Christ and worship Him, Christians in America can hardly bother going to church.  Even among “Christians”, people are not really interested in God.  God is not the first priority in people’s lives. He’s not even the second or third priority. He’s much farther down the list.  People say:

"Maybe I’ll go to church if I don’t have a trip planned."

"Maybe I'll go if my son doesn’t have a baseball game."

"Maybe I'll go if I'm not too tired (because I stayed out too late on Saturday night to make it to a church service that doesn't start until 11 AM)."

And so out of four Sundays in a month, a typical family may only attend church one or two times. (And this is a Christian family that claims they follow Jesus as their Lord and that God is the top priority in their life!)

This doesn't even touch on the subjects of attending Sunday school or Bible study (where you really dive deep in your faith) or serving or your prayer life or tithing (which is giving 10% of your income as the minimum financial contribution to the work of God’s Kingdom), or actually living out Chritian values in a secular world even if it puts you at odds with the culture around you.

Of course, some will say, “Preacher, you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian. And just because you aren’t sitting in a pew every Sunday, doesn’t mean you aren’t focusing on your relationship with God.”  OK, that is theoretically true.  So what are you doing? If you are not attending church, how much time are you focusing on your walk with Christ?

For the average person in America who claims to be a Christian, but doesn’t attend church because “they can be a Christian and not attend church”, how are you staying focused? Who is holding you accountable to Jesus? What are you doing on a daily and weekly basis to worship, serve, fellowship with other believers?  How are you diving deeper and deeper into the most important relationship in your existence, the one for which you were literally created? 

For you who are "Christian" but not regularly attending church, where is the road you are traveling leading? Where is it leading the next generation?  Do you think you children and grandchildren are going to continue to be focused on God and the Christian values you say you believe in (things like love and forgiveness and patience) if you can’t even bother to go to God’s house regularly on Sunday mornings?

What is going to become of the institutional church?  What will the world be like without it?  

Usually, it isn’t until people experience some crisis or tragedy that they regain some of their focus on God and His Church. Nothing gets people praying and seeking God’s help like a diagnosis of cancer or a financial disaster.  However, when life’s good and our belly’s are full, we don’t want to celebrate and worship the Lord. We wanna go have some fun doing whatever we want to do so we forget about God.

God is extremely patient with us. He gives us our blessings and puts up with us while we ignore Him. He patiently waits for us to come to our senses—either because of some disaster or epiphany where we finally wake up from our sinful, selfish attitude.

Luke 15:13-16
13 “A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. 14 About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. 15 He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. 16 The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.

17 “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, 19 and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’

 
20 “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. 21 His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’

22 “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. 23 And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, 24 for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.

The True Meaning of the Parable
In case you didn’t know, this story is about God and us.  The Father in this story is God.  The son who ran away and then returned home represents a lot of the people in this world who turn their back on God.  The Father in the story (God) is able to welcome His wayward son home because of His patience.  You see, the Father wasn’t bad-mouthing His wayward son the whole time He was gone.  He continued to love His son, even though His son didn’t deserve it.

If the father wasn’t patient, He would be much be much more apt to be angry when His son retuned.  He would be much more prone to say “I told you so! I told you this was gonna happen!”  But we see none of that in this story.  The Father sees His son coming while he is still a long way off and He runs out to greet His son and welcome him home.  There’s no hint of anger or smug vindication in His attitude.  The Father loves the son and is genuinely and completely glad His wayward son has come home.

That’s the kind of patience we are called to have as we love one another. You see, that is truly what the world needs now—love, sweet love. Love that is patient when people don’t do the right thing.  Not an attitude of “See!  I told you so! I was right!  You were wrong!”

That’s the arrogant, mean spirited attitude the other brother has in the story--the older brother, the so-called “good” brother.

Luke 15:25-30
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, 26 and he asked one of the servants what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’

28 “The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, 29 but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. 30 Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’

No Patience
The older brother is not like his Father.  He has no patience for his younger brother’s foolishness.  He is angry—not just at his brother, but also at his Father.  There is no love in his heart.  He hates his brother.  What does he want?  Would he have preferred his brother had starved to death in that foreign land and never returned?  That's how it seems.

When you think of the people with which you’ve lost patience for one reason or another, what do you want for them?  Do you really want them to get what they deserve?  Would you like to be a able to stand over them with smug indignation saying, “I told you so!”  If someone doesn't get vaccinated and get's very sick or dies from COVID, do you want to be able to wag your finger at them and scream, "I told you so!"  If someone does get vaccinated and then has complications, do you want to be able to stare at them indignantly and say "See!  I was right and you were wrong!"  And what of the billions of people who do not follow Christ, who think he is just a myth and you are an idiot for believing in Jesus?  Do you want to see them burning in Hell just so you can laugh at them and feel good about yourself because you did “the right thing” and you were a “good person” and they are getting what they deserve?

That's not patience.  That's not love.

Luke 15:31-32
31 “His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. 32 We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’”

Still Waiting
When Jesus told this story, he wisely didn’t tell us how it ends.  Does the older brother finally get it?  Does he also “come to his senses” and realize he’s being unloving and is just as much at fault as his rash younger brother?  Jesus doesn’t tell us the end of the story because you and I will be the ones who finish it.  We finish it by the way we choose to live. 

Closing

And God patiently waits.
How will you respond today?·
Do you need to come to your senses and start truly putting God first in your life?
Do you need to come to your senses and repent of your own smugness, realizing you are no better than anyone else?
Do you need to learn to truly love people by being more patient?