September 17 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Luke 15:11–20

Devotional

Did you ever notice that the prodigal son had intended to ask his father if he could be a hired servant, but when he was in the arms of his father, he never asked this? It was his intention to ask this because he had to admit: “I am no more worthy to be called thy son,” so, he would ask if he could be a hired servant.

If he could be just a hired servant. He doesn’t deserve anything more than that. He has sinned away all rights to be a son. His father is the one who has rights. It would therefore be a favor if his father would be willing to take his son back as a slave.

Is this also not the case with every person who is convicted of his sin? If you have seen the greatness of your guilt, you become small, unworthy, and without any rights. You become very dependent. If only you could be a hired servant, or a doorkeeper of God’s house. If only you could receive a crumb of bread, one ray of light, or one drop of water.

More you do not deserve. Yes, even that would be inexpressible grace. But at the same time you still cannot do with less, because for the prodigal son there is no life anymore outside the house of the father. And that is how prodigal sons and daughters come home, for the first time and every time when they have gone astray. They come trembling because of Gods justice. They come begging for a favor. They don’t dare ask back what they have wasted. If only they would receive something of what they once had, that would already be such joy. For all they receive above death is grace and that is why they try to imagine the least they can ask. Even the least from lost paradise is most valuable to them.

Do you also know this humble attitude? Nobody of God’s people is a stranger to this. They would rather have the very least from God than the very best outside of God. They live in the worst famine, and they have brought themselves into it, but now they leave it up to God, if He would be willing to give them even the smallest crumb.

But when the prodigal son came home and was pressed to the heart of his father, he still did not ask to become a hired servant. Why not? Because his father received him as a child. His father himself held him close to his heart. Would he have done that to a hired servant? Therefore the prodigal son says that he is no longer worthy to be called a son, but he doesn’t dare utter the request to be a hired servant. He couldn’t ask that. That would have hurt his father’s heart, now that he had become a child again.

This is also reality in spiritual life. This is an experience all prodigal sons know about. God gives grace above expectation. They never dared to think that God was waiting for their guilt.

O sinner, when you fall into these arms of grace, you at first do not dare ask the least favor, because you have sinned away everything. But then you dare not ask for the least favor, because of the everlasting loving-kindness of God.

Where the Lord gives grace, everything is well. Then you do not receive the portion of a slave but the portion of a child. You receive much more than you dared ask for. Where these arms of grace are opened everything is in abundance. How is that possible? That is something they also learn later on. This is because of the sovereign good pleasure of God in Christ. It is all in the only Son who was forsaken by His Father in all things and who was not even allowed to be a hired servant before He had paid everything for those who have no rights left.

 

From The Everlasting Word by Frans Bakker, compiled and translated by Gerald R. Procee. Reformation Heritage Books and Free Reformed Publications, 2007. Used by permission. For further information, click here.