Just finished The Prodigal God- Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith by Timothy Keller, pastor of Redeemer PCA Church in New York.
This was an excellent handling of the story of the two sons and the Prodigal Father. His telling of the story is very good and forces some important and very biblical paradigm changes.
God is lavish. The two brothers are both pursuing dead end courses. The Father goes out to both of them. One responds, the other rejects. While we tend to relate to the younger brother, much of the problem in our own midst and in our own churches is that we are in danger of being the older brother, the one who fails to respond to the Father. The younger brothers besetting sin is his bad deeds. The older brother's besetting sin is his good deeds. Which brother are you?
The answer is to turn to the true Elder Brother, the Lord Jesus, who fulfills His calling before the Father. He will find the profligate brother and bring him home. He will remind the cold elder brother that he must serve the Father out of love, not pursuing the self-righteousness of his own good deeds. Jesus, our true elder brother is eminently faithful. When we respond to Him in true gratitude for the great price of His serving us, we will find peace like a deep river.
Furthermore, we will be transformed by this kind of love so that our own profligate lives or our own self-righteous pride are annihilated in the deep, deep, love of Jesus. This is nothing less than walking in the New Creation, in our hearts first and in our lives and the lives around us in this world, thereafter.
Highly recommended book.
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