You Are Always With Me

Last week I talked about the importance of a homecoming. The younger son came home, he may have thought it was to be a servant, however the father only had one aim and that was to re-instate him as a son. Sadly, the older brother didn’t have the same experience. 
 
The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.’” (Luke 15:28-29, 31 NIV)
 
Whilst the sons responded differently, the father responds to both of them in the same way and with the same invitation. He goes out to his older son, just as he had for the younger one, and invites him to come in and join the celebration. The older brother can’t do it. He is so judgemental that his desire for right-ness overrides any desire for relationship. 
 
The father pleads with him and all that does is fall on deaf ears. Despite being given his share of the father’s property at the beginning of the story, the older son claims to have nothing. He claims he’s been treated as a slave and has therefore never been able to behave like a son. 
 
The father’s response is amazing: “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours”. 
 
The Father says the same to us today. We are with him - does your heart know that? Everything of his is ours - do you believe that? It’s an incredible statement and a powerful gift. My question is “can you receive it?”