Thanks for joining us on this journey of building a consistent habit of reading our Bibles every day. The Bible reading plan we are using this year can be found here: One Year Bible or here on the Bible app. As always, if you miss a day, don’t feel compelled to go back and catch up. Just skip it and start back on today’s date. I am reading the NLT this year, but feel free to use whatever version you prefer. Now here are some thoughts from today’s readings:
“His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours.“
– Luke 15:31
The story of the prodigal son includes a great conversation between the father and the older, faithful son. The older son is upset that the father threw a party for the younger son who treated the father terribly, but the father had never done the same for the older son. When you put yourself in the older son’s shoes, it does seem a bit unfair, doesn’t it?
The father’s answer is a challenging one. He tells his oldest that everything He has is His and that he got to spend all of his time with his father. The idea is this, you get to spend time with the Father (which is the greatest thing ever) and all that that Father has is yours (an endless supply), so you should be excited. In fact, you should have been partying this whole time!
How often do you take the time to celebrate that God loves you and that you’re His and you are His heir? Is that not worth throwing a party for? Yet we rarely do. We celebrate getting saved (which this story shows we clearly should) but then we stop celebrating the continued work of Christ in us. We get upset when we sin and make mistakes, and we should. But once we repent, we should celebrate the God who still saves! And what about all the times you don’t sin? We should celebrate and have more joy over the times we overcome through Christ then the sadness we get when we fail without Him. For some of us, that’s actually are problem. We linger longer on our failures than we do on our successes. You get to spend time with God and all He has is yours. Yes, you fail sometimes, but most times you do great in Christ. So celebrate!
What has God done in you, through you, and for you that you need to start celebrating?