Prodigal Son – Prodigal Grace

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate” Luke 15:22-23.

The only way you can always win with God is to surrender. Surrender! And it is because when you surrender to God you are not the victim, you have not lost; you have actually won. What begins to happen to you when you surrender is victory. Jacob was wrestling with God and God had to break his thighbone. Then he surrendered, his name changed and he entered into his blessings. As long as you keep struggling, you will keep wandering. Surrender! It won’t hurt you to surrender. It will actually do you good.

The story of the son in Luke 15 has been termed in different ways. Some term it the story of the prodigal son and others say it is the story of the lost son. Both are correct. It is prodigal in the sense that the word “prodigal” means wastefully extravagant. The boy was wastefully extravagant; but the prodigal son needed a prodigal grace to save and redeem him. Why prodigal grace? The grace that is wastefully extravagant. Can grace be wastefully extravagant? That is not a very nice thing to say about the grace of God, right? Let me show you the wastefully extravagant grace. If I were the one this boy had come back to after living a riotous life, I don’t know about you, but I would have given him a knock on the head. Then I’ll let him work as a servant for six months to learn his lesson and then I would now restore him. Would that not be grace? Of course! It will be grace. Maybe there are some of you who are nicer than I am and are saying as soon as he comes back you would take him in as a son. Would that not be grace? If his father had done that, that would have been a high level of grace. But if you go further, on his return you throw a party and kill a small goat. That would be amazing grace, right? Particularly in the Nigerian culture, that would be amazing grace. But the Scripture kept talking about the fattened calf, not a fattened calf but the fattened calf. This is how it works; the rich Semites have herds that are for ploughing. But they put aside a calf- it doesn’t do any work. They just fatten it in preparation for a special occasion. It takes a lot of years to fatten a calf and everybody knows the fattened calf. This boy came back from riotous living and his father took the fattened calf and killed it. Is that not wasteful? If you look at it logically, that is wastefully extravagant. But that is a prodigal grace for a prodigal son. If you are reading this today and are weighed down by self-condemnation for the things you have done, I am here to tell you that there is a prodigal grace for a prodigal son/ daughter.

Prayer [song]: Thank You Jesus For the grace that You have given us; We could never repay but from my heart I’d like to say, That I thank You.