Imagine for a moment that you grew up alongside a rebellious peer. While you sought to follow the Lord day in and day out, they didn’t even try. They lived it up and went wild every day of the week.
Now imagine that, years later, you hear an update about this old classmate of yours. She came to the end of herself, rededicated her life to Christ and now has a whole new life—one that is beautiful and full.
How would you respond to that turn of events? Would you be happy for her? Or would you think, uncharitably, “How is this fair? She did everything wrong and ended up with everything good?”
Sometimes, if we’re honest, we respond with a little bit of the latter. Yet this sort of thinking is also wrong. It’s reminiscent of the attitude of the prodigal son’s older brother in Luke 15:28-32.
Now his elder son was in the field. As he came near to the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the servants to him and asked what was going on. He said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and healthy.’ But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and begged him. But he answered his father, ‘Behold, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed a commandment of yours, but you never gave me a goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this your son came, who has devoured your living with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.’ “He said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But it was appropriate to celebrate and be glad, for this, your brother, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.’
If we find ourselves relating to the prodigal son’s older brother, we need to realize: our attitude stems from two big misunderstandings.
ONE. We misunderstand what matters to God
The older brother said, “Behold, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed a commandment of yours, but …this your son…devoured your living with prostitutes…” There’s an undercurrent of self-righteousness in his words, isn’t there?
Sometimes, even as Christians, we fall into the old erroneous thinking that if we obey and serve and do all the right external things, we’ll be good and God will be pleased with us. But God wants more than our compliance. He wants our hearts.
After all, a person that checks religious boxes out of duty (rather than love of God) may be just as much a prodigal as the person who blatantly rebels. Just look at the Pharisees, for example. The truth is, even if we manage to do everything right externally (and we rarely do), our inner thoughts, motives and attitudes still fall short of God’s perfect standard. We have no righteousness of our own to brag about. We need the Lord’s grace just as much as the prodigal does. But thankfully, when we realize this, we end up right where God wants us.
God doesn’t want self-sufficient, self-righteous children. He wants children who recognize their need for Him and come running home to find the love, grace and righteousness only He can provide.
So, this week, consider:
- Where have your thoughts, reactions and choices reminded you of your need for God and the grace He so freely gives?
- And how will this reminder change the way you interact with your heavenly Father and the prodigals you may know?
TWO. We misunderstand what matters in life
After proudly listing off his list of good deeds, the older brother said pointedly to his father, “but you never gave me a goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this your son came, who has devoured your living with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.”
Sometimes, we, too, compare our blessings to the blessings of others—and conclude we’ve been shortchanged. “I’ve been so good,” we think, “Why haven’t I been rewarded for it?” Yet in verse 31, the father responded to his oldest son with words we also need to hear. He said, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”
In other words, staying close to God is its own reward.
Instead of experiencing the bitter cold and sad degradation of living life on our own, we get to enjoy the warmth and honor of living in the presence of Love Himself. God’s presence is where our souls feel most at home. It’s where we can grow into the best versions of ourselves and find comfort for every growing pain. It’s where we get to know our Father experientially and find that He’s worth trusting—and worshiping.
We also find that we’re happier and more blessed when we’re living in that place of relationship with Him. You know, so often we view God’s blessings—and not God Himself—as the way to happiness. It’s why we say bitter things like, “you never gave me a goat, that I might celebrate with my friends”—we think that some thing or party is what would finally make us happy. But blessings in and of themselves cannot satisfy long-term. The prodigal son teaches us that. His story proves that if we try to enjoy God’s blessings apart from God they will eventually run out and our happiness will eventually run dry.
God Himself is the only lasting source of happiness—because He’s always there to fill up our lives with His goodness. Plus, He’s always there to meet our needs as they arise. The Father did say to his oldest son, “all that is mine is yours,” so God will give us, as His children, blessings. Only, those things will be the cherry on top—and not the substance—of our happiness.
- So, where have you been looking for happiness recently? In God? Or in the blessings He may (or may not) have given you?
When we lose our self-righteousness and find our fulfillment in God Himself, the grace and blessing-filled lives of others no longer threaten us—they thrill us! After all, we are children of the same Father and He has endless love to give.
This devotion is based on one of the Scriptures from my 2025 reading plan: “A Year in the Gospels” To receive a copy of the reading plan (and future reading plans), sign up for the email list below. Hope you’ll follow along! You can also learn more about my Scripture over Screentime experiment here.
Written by Paige K. Burhans
©2025 Paige K. Burhans
Scriptures taken from the World English Bible British Edition. Public Domain.
