Notice what the father says? He doesn't answer any of the things at all. He doesn't get drawn into all of this. He doesn't get drawn into the moaning, groaning, judging, whining, complaining negatives, not one little bit. He doesn't try and justify what he's done. He doesn't try to explain what he's done. He doesn't do anything because he's not a victim. He doesn't need to justify and he doesn't need to blame, doesn't need to explain, doesn't need to do anything. He just said son, everything I had was yours. You just needed to ask. Son, everything I've got is yours, you just need to ask. Son, everything I have is yours! You just needed to ask! I love you.
The word son there is not older son, mature son. It's a little boy son, it's a child who's no different than a servant because he remains childish in his thinking. You say child, you're thinking like a child. You're part of my family. Everything I have is yours. Rise up and begin to declare your dreams and plan how to fulfil them and ask me for how to resource them and I'll do it. What a great thing. So the son got a revelation of the father's love. He couldn't receive it because he was so caught in his own victim thinking. Now Jesus was applying that to the religious people, the scribes and the Pharisees who couldn't understand the generosity of God, that God will pour His spirit and touch undeserving people, but that is what God is like.
Here's what God is like - He's good. Here's what He's like - He is good. He is good all the time and not only that, He's full of grace. That means He gives people what they don't deserve, but we've got a religious world that divides up if you deserve it you get it, if you don't deserve it you don't get it. That's not how God operates by the way. That's the law. He operates differently. He says I'm good! I'm good all the time! I'm generous all the time! I give all the time! Believe and receive and open your heart to experience my love and be transformed from being a slave into being a son of a great family, part of a royal line destined to rule over all creation.
We need revelation of the Father's love. We need to turn from our victim slavish thinking and come into the inheritance God has for us. One of the greatest lessons in the Bible is that the children of Israel, having received the goodness of God, refused to break out of their negative complaining, whinging, whining, blaming, excusing behaviour and in the end God said well what you've been saying is what's going to happen. You can't enter the land. We can't walk into the new things God has unless we let God reveal His love and open our hearts to think differently. Amen!
Father God, we just thank you today. What a great God you are. Oh, I hear the horns sounding in heaven today, pushing on all the negative thinking, all the negative talking and encouraging us to begin to think differently.