The Undeserved Favor of God

After the Prodigal Son comes to his senses he begins the long journey home. He starts to practice his excuses. He knows a lot depends on his choice of words. The key to his strategy is to earn his way back into community (like many people believe today), to pay back his debt bit by bit as a hired hand. It’s the best he can expect in what is a desperate situation.

As he walked along the dusty road, his head downcast rehearsing his lines, he is astonished at a commotion ahead of him. Off in the distance, miles from home and coming towards him is the unmistakable figure of his Father running, not walking towards him. The son doesn’t know what to think. Before he can fall at his Father’s feet and beg for mercy, his dad is holding him up in a bear-hug, smothering him with kisses and showering him with tears of joy.

Stunned, the son pulls away and begins the lines he has memorized. This is the ticket home. Before he can finish the speech, the Father interrupts him, demanding that one of the servants clothe him with his best robe, place the family ring on his finger and kill the fatted calf for a celebration for the family and the whole village.

For his actions, the son deserves the Father’s rejection; instead he receives complete acceptance. Nothing in the rebellious son’s character merits mercy; instead the Father showers him with forgiveness. The son believes his only hope is to earn back the Father’s favor; instead he is smothered with a free gift of unconditional love.

As surely as the Father smothers his son with tears and kisses of joy, our Heavenly Father showers us with grace...underserved, unmerited and unearned favor. And in the Father’s love, just as the rebellious son is restored, fully and completely, to the family he had walked away from, we too can experience the wonderful restoration of God's love.

Here is the heart of the Christian gospel; long before we turn our face towards God in repentance, God is running towards us in loving embrace. The Apostle Paul famously said in Romans 5:8: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were running away from God, God was running towards us. While we turned our back towards God in open rebellion, God was turned towards us in loving embrace.