A certain man has two sons. One of the sons believes he has the right to their father’s inheritance without having to please his father first before he can be blessed or given the right to enjoy their father’s inheritance.
The other son, on the other hand, believes he has to serve his father enough to please him first to be accepted by the father and then secondly to be blessed by their father before he can enjoy his father’s inheritance.
Even when the senior son would see his younger brother requesting their father’s inheritance without doing anything to merit their father’s inheritance, and was giving half of their father’s inheritance to go and enjoy, this elder son of the father still held up in his head that he still needs to please their father first before he can be blessed with the remaining half of their father’s inheritance that was already.
His younger brother after going out to waste the portion of his inheritance that was given to him, still came back to beg his father for forgiveness and his father still take him back.
The father forgives him and puts a ring on his hand and puts on him the best rob and kills the fattest of his calf to celebrate the return of his beloved son.
Their father still opens the door of his remaining wealth of blessings to this believed prodigal son of his who has already waste half of his wealth.
While all this was going on, the elder brother still wouldn’t see how blessed he was with the father’s blessing and the need to lay hold of it for a good course.
Still, the elder brother was sitting, hoping and waiting to serve their father well enough one day for their father to see him worthy of his inheritance to be blessed with a portion of the father’s inheritance that rightfully belong to him already for him to enjoy and celebrate with his friends.
Now this is the story of the prodigal son in the bible. As we all have read in the Bible, this is also the same story of both the legalist. The self-righteous people. The grace believers.
This same story portrayed the unending love of the father towards us his children.
It wasn’t just anyhow story one needed to just read for no just course. It was a story told by Jesus to teach the unending love of the Father towards us all.
In whichever way we will see the two sons in the story, the same story painted a picture of a gracious father who is always gracious to his children, who has already blessed his children, who don’t wait to see his children please him enough first before he can bless them.
As a son of God and as a supposed believer, if you will have to wait to serve your Father enough first before the Father can bless you and before you can feel blessed, just know that you are like the elder brother of the believed prodigal son who was sitting and waiting to merits their father’s blessing one day by trying to please the father for the blessing the father has already bless them both with before.
This is also the same belief system of the legalist and the self-righteousness acclaim people.
In the same light, if you have the understanding like the said prodigal son who believes his father’s blessing is his right to enjoy without him trying to merit it before he can enjoy it, then you are of the grace believers who understand that they aren’t worthy of the fathers blessing, still, the father being gracious to bless them without them working to merit it.
Now this is the difference between our earthly parents and God.
Most often our earthly parents would want us to merit their blessing by serving them first enough before they can give us their blessings. But this is not the same with God the Father who has already blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. who love us even before the foundation of the world and came to die for our sins even when we were yet sinners.
The only problem the father might have with the prodigal son is in how he spent his father’s inheritance.
The father might not necessarily have a problem with the prodigal son requesting a portion of the father’s wealth.
This is the same with our heavenly father. He has no problem with us using or taking from his wealth and living a fulfilled life with it, so long we do not live a wasteful life with it.
It is the reason when the elder’s brother began to complain when he saw the father kill the best of their sheep for the prodigal brother who return home, to celebrate his return.
The elder brother became angry seeing their father still welcoming his younger brother in that manner.
So, he said to their father when his father notice he wouldn’t come in to celebrate with his brother.
So he said, “All these years I have served you neither did I for once break any of your commandments and yet though has never for once given me smallest of the goat for me to kill and celebrate with my friends.” Luke 15:29.
Now you would think the elder son wasn’t also interested in celebration like the prodigal son was. he was but the problem he has was the mindset of “before anyone can enjoy the father’s blessings, he or she will have to first serve the father enough to be rewarded with the father’s blessing”.
This was the wrong mindset the elder brother had about the father’s blessing.
It is the same mindset so many supposed believers of today go about with. Where you will see them trying to serve the father just enough so that the father can bless them.
In most cases, when after they felt they have served enough and are not seeing their believed blessing from the Father, they will become frustrated in their service to God. And some who couldn’t take it any longer will go ahead to end their life or some will go about announcing that there is no God.
As believer, if this is the kind of mindset you go about with, you will live all your life as a frustrated person in this world even though being a believer.
As a true believer, this is not our position. We are not serving to be blessed by the Father. Instead, we are serving because we are already blessed by the father.
This is the mindset a true believer should have about the father and the father’s blessing.
