Oct 21 - Luke 15:30

The older son said,

"But when this son of yours came back,

who has devoured your property with prostitutes,

you killed the fatted calf for him!"

Luke 15:30

I've been preaching lately about balance. Thus, a friend sent me a devotional that he'd written a few years ago. Let me share a piece. This friend writes ... 

"Rather than being at Home with the Father, the older brother was working out in the fields.  He comes in and hears the music and the crowds ... and the resentment wells up in him."

I never caught it before ... but that's the story of Mary and Martha!

Martha and the older brother spent the whole story righteous, busy, and distracted, while their "irresponsible" younger siblings were at Home and at rest.

My friend used his devotional to explain how he tried the older brother route to being the model Christian, saying,

I read and memorized Scripture, I prayed and fasted, I tithed, I sacrificed. When the church doors were open, my family and I were there. We went the extra mile for our children and guarded our household against influences that would harm. I took on every job and responsibility that was suggested. ... But slowly, over time, the doing for God became a real burden.

Like the older brother, he says that he did all the right things, but was missing out on the greatest thing -- a relationship with the Father.

In the end, after years of the distraction of doing and doing and doing things "the right way," the older brother wanted a party of his own. But by now he doesn't even want his Father to be involved. He just wants to his own revelry with "his friends."

Let us not be like the older brother, so busy and distracted that we come to a point where we could care less whether the Father was really there or not.

And remember, we don't have to earn or justify our place at the table. It's simply and wonderfully been offered to us ... with this invitation: "Come home."

In Christ's Love,

an older brother

who hopes to look younger