And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.
The father gently assures his resentful elder son that he remains continually with him and shares fully in all the household's blessings. Welcoming back the lost brother takes nothing away from the elder son, whose place and inheritance stand secure. What the father gives is free gift from love, not wages to be earned by long service or hardship. The elder son in his cold jealousy and refusal to rejoice pictures those who serve for reward and begrudge mercy to sinners. The father pictures the Heavenly Father, who does not abandon the straying but watches, seeks, forgives without reproach, and restores the repentant to sonship and honor.
Father's Assurance and Setting
The father answers the resentful elder son with patient assurance that the son is continually with him and that all that the father has belongs to him, expressing unbroken relationship, companionship, generosity, and full share in the blessings of the household. The assurance is given alongside the explanation that welcoming the returned son is right, because the lost brother has been found, and the father seeks by it to soften the elder son's heart and draw him from jealousy into rejoicing. His welcome is fitting because Christ came to recover the lost, not to condemn them.
Welcoming the returned brother takes nothing away from the elder son, whose place and possessions remain secure and undiminished. He is still called to recognize the returned wanderer as his brother and to join in rejoicing rather than standing apart. Celebrating is right and fitting because the younger brother was lost and is found, was dead in sin and is alive again. That joy over the repentant one who was dead to filial affection and now has returned is not wrong, for he needs pity, love, and forgiveness.
The setting of these words is the story of a younger son who asked for a portion of the estate to separate his interest from his father's and manage it according to his own inclination, though rightfully he could claim nothing and should have had nothing. The father complied and gave the undeserved treasure, and the son selfishly withdrew to a distance so as not to be troubled by counsel or reproof and even to forget that he had a father. He felt no obligation to his generous father, braced his selfish rebellious spirit with the thought that part of the property was his, despised restraint, rejected mutual obligation, and was fully determined to be happy by using his portion for his own pleasure in any way he chose without advice or restraint. After spending all by sinful indulgence in extravagant pleasure, he was visited by famine, felt pinching want, regretted his course, was left destitute of the means he had squandered, and came down to the low business of feeding swine. Such ruin by selfish indulgence is also pictured as sinking lower and lower by habitual wine-drinking until courage and God-given manhood are lost and the mind and judgment drift under Satan's control with no power to leave the snare.
The parable belongs to Christ's way of teaching by a familiar story from daily life to illustrate immortal truth and remind hearers of the spiritual and unseen. It is held up as a most pathetic and touching illustration of truth, coming right to the point without long, farfetched, complicated reasoning, drawing things both new and old from His treasure-house. It touches the heart and awakens sympathies, commending truth to the conscience, while leaving hearers free to accept or reject it without forcing belief.
God's Love for Sinners
The parable is a revelation of pitying love for those who stray from home, showing that even when they turn away they are not left in misery nor abandoned in kindness and tenderness. The father in the story stands for God, whose longing, watchfulness, and readiness to welcome and provide for the absent son as His own declare His forgiving love toward the sinner who returns. He takes the first step to seek, and He is ready to save all who allow Him to bring them home, which is a call to cooperate earnestly with Him in seeking the lost sheep and winning back the prodigal.
The father is the Heavenly Father, who welcomes every repentant soul without reproach and without reminders of past unworthiness, for penitence is what is required. He compassionately receives those who repent, forgives sin, receives the sinner as a son, and restores him to honor. That reception covers the returning one with Christ's righteousness and gives him a place at the Father's table with provision as His own, while the assurance to the one who stayed shows that welcoming the repentant does not diminish the place of the other but invites recognition of a brother and joining in rejoicing.
The humble, contrite, and faithful who love and serve God are welcomed into His presence and remain in His favor. To be blessed by seeing God is to abide always in His love, with access granted to His throne of grace and a share in all that is His. The father's assurance that the son has always remained with him and that all the father's possessions are already his reflects the welcome and lasting blessings of the Father's house, which encourage people to give their hearts to God and call one who has left Him to return and receive God as Father.
Infinite love is seen in the gift of the beloved Son for the fallen race, which made a channel for the outflow of infinite love so that all who believe are restored again to favor. Christ's dying love assures the sinner of acceptance, peace, and love. The way God will deal with the erring who come back in repentance gives grand themes for thought and a solid foundation for faith, so that nothing more need be asked, and believing leads to obedience to all of God's commandments and to life in Jesus Christ.
Jesus yearns after sons and daughters who are acting as the prodigal and longs to do them the good He would delight to do. He is kept from doing it by the perversity of character seen when those who claim to keep the commandments transgress the law and use their entrusted talents to counterwork God.
Unearned Gifts Not Wages
The father's assurance that the son is always with him and that everything he has belongs to him shows that what is given in the household is a free expression of love, not payment for work done. Nothing needs to be earned by toil or penance in order to obtain a gift or secure a reward; all that is needed is to trust that love and receive what is already offered. That tender appeal is directed to those who, like the Pharisees, already enjoy special privileges from God yet serve in hope of reward rather than from love. The elder son's secure place in the household does not excuse jealousy and criticism, for watching for his brother's faults and accusing him reveals a selfish, unforgiving spirit that misrepresents God and shuts out His light.
The elder son already possessed his father's companionship and a share in all his possessions, but he failed to recognize the privileges that were already his. His jealousy and complaint at the welcome given to the repentant prodigal expose that failure, showing resentment toward a reception that took nothing away from him. The father's words at the same time express continuing love and welcome, even while laying bare selfishness and an unforgiving spirit.
To endure hardships and bear burdens and then claim long service as grounds for a larger reward is error, as though work could earn salvation. Such faultfinding and complaint mark an un-Christlike spirit, and that spirit spoils the service itself.
Enjoying the privileges of sonship requires complying with its conditions, for belonging carries responsibilities as well as blessings. This means receiving Christ, obeying His word, and making Him supreme and all in all. The son must meet God on God's ground and not his own, with cordial assent and willing obedience to His terms, renouncing the favor and friendship of the world, walking according to His Word, acknowledging Christ as King and letting Him reign in the soul. He must remain under the Father's care without wandering away again, as the found sheep must remain in the fold under the shepherd's care and not renew its wanderings. Claiming a son's share therefore calls for giving the whole life and not money alone, with real sacrifice, personal effort, self-denial and obedience, submitting to direction and control and repaying love by obedience.
Elder Brother's Jealous Resentment
The elder son had stayed at home with his father in outward faithfulness, yet his closeness and share in all his father had did not keep him from a cold, jealous, self-righteous, selfish, stubborn and unforgiving spirit. When his brother was welcomed home he answered with self-willed complaint, criticism, faultfinding, contempt and resentment toward his father's joy, refusing to forgive, to sympathize, or to rejoice at the return. His place in the household and his share in the father's gifts, which were unearned gifts of love and not wages for service, gave him no excuse for jealousy or for watching for faults and accusing his brother. That resentment and refusal to share the father's mercy and love is the warning of the verse, calling instead for tender sympathy, forgiveness and glad acceptance of the repentant.
He met the returning brother with suspicion, dislike, distrust and unkindness instead of patience, forbearance, kindness and tenderness. He magnified mistakes, put evil surmising on his brother, and treated thoughtless errors as deliberate sins rather than humbling himself and loving his brother with kindness and courtesy. Some who are called Seventh-day Adventists act the same way toward returning souls and toward those who most need their help. Those who know by experience what it feels like to be met with distrust must not cherish dislike, retaliate, treat others as they have been treated, or show that same elder-brother spirit in labor for others, but must keep Christ's prayer before the mind and answer it in daily attitude and practice.
In the parable the elder brother represents the Pharisees, who enjoyed special privileges from God but served in hope of reward rather than from love. He represents unrepenting Israel, which had resisted mercy and grace, neglected opportunities and rejected messengers, and which refused to recognize publicans and sinners as brothers to be sought, forgiven and brought to everlasting life. He represents also many handling sacred things who feel righteous and faithful in duty, think they need no repentance, expect commendation and honor, contrast their own course with the prodigal's, and cannot sympathize with the father's joy in receiving the wandering one back. In particular he represents established church members with an envious, unconverted spirit who begrudge care and attention given to new believers, and whose attitude can hinder God's work.
Watching for faults, accusing his brother, and refusing to share the father's mercy misrepresents God and keeps him from receiving God's light. By that very unwillingness to receive his repenting brother and to rejoice at his return he proves his own need of repentance. He needs to humble himself, put away evil surmising, and learn to love as the father loves, so that all who claim to love God may properly represent Him by welcoming and rejoicing over the penitent instead of resenting them.
Seeking and Welcoming the Lost
The verse calls for tender sympathy, forgiveness, and glad acceptance of the repentant rather than reproach, resentment, harsh judgment, or condemnation. Those who have erred suffer in feeling and are often desponding and discouraged, and they need pity, help, sympathy, and above everything else free forgiveness, matching the father's great joy at his son's return. The elder brother's cold, jealous, self-righteous spirit failed to share that joy, standing stubbornly and selfishly by while his brother struggled and received a tender welcome, and his closeness to the father and share in all that was his only exposes the wrongness of looking down on straying people instead of helping bring them back. Trying to make the erring feel where they have erred and keeping their error before them is a natural but wrong course of brother toward brother, and the lost are to be treated as objects of loving concern and compassion and led to repentance rather than responded to harshly.
God's people are to cooperate earnestly with Him in seeking the lost sheep, winning back the prodigal, and bringing truth close to hearts. That means going into the wilderness to search for, find, and bring back the bewildered, carrying the burden and hunting for souls, rather than wounding and driving the sheep away. Indifference and careless disregard for souls ready to die refuses the spirit of the true shepherd who goes after the lost and calls the distressed to return, and refuses to join all heaven in rejoicing when the lost are found and restored. Practicing these lessons involves eternal interests and requires careful study, a true representation of the tender, loving, pitying care of the Father who receives the repentant with the joy of an earthly father receiving a long-lost son returning in penitence.
Church members who have had labor bestowed on them must not murmur when ministers leave constant labor for the church to seek and save the lost, or when wandering people and new believers receive attention and labor. To speak unjust sentiments as though the church had been robbed, to become envious and jealous over that attention, and to begrudge the welcome given to the lost son reveals the elder brother's resentful spirit of jealousy and self-interest, though he already had his father's presence and share. Such selfishness without the Spirit of Christ, who left the ninety and nine to seek the lost sheep, sorely displeases God, is seen by Him in word and attitude, and hinders the saving of souls that every converted soul is required to seek. Those who love truth and love Christ do the opposite, loving those for whom Christ died, rejoicing over rescued sinners, refusing to hold up the church while neglecting perishing souls around them, and striving by strength, talent, yoke-bearing, precept and example to make the ministers' labors for the lost a perfect success. A living church is not a gossiping church planting doubt, questioning, evil surmising, and jealousy while expecting to be constantly fed with sermons and doing no righteousness in its own homes or in the church, but an earnest, working church that carries the message of salvation, bears light, stretches out its hands all the day in burden for souls and sincere prayer, hunts for souls, and seeks to save those that are lost when Christ is formed within as the hope of glory.
Those who know by experience what it feels like to be met with distrust, suspicion, and unkindness must not cherish dislike, retaliate, treat others as they have been treated, or show that same elder-brother spirit in labor for others. The returning son was met by the elder brother with suspicion, dislike, distrust, unkindness, and an unforgiving spirit instead of patience, forbearance, kindness, and tenderness, and some will act the same way toward returning souls who most need help. Instead, those who have gone wrong are to be given room to recover and not harshly repulsed, with the prayer of Christ kept before the mind and answered in daily attitude and practice.
The parable encourages prodigals far from the Father's house and perishing with hunger, thorough backsliders in the service of sin, and those seeking the Lord for the first time, that those who have left the Father's house can even now return to God and be brought back and saved. That return is an immediate, wholehearted decision to be a Christian from that day, turning square about to leave the service of Satan and of sin, coming with a humble heart, confession, contrition, and truth received into the life, without delay. It brings pardon and love, a purified mind and changed purposes, cleansing, restoration to the Father's house and to His service, open-armed reception, and strength for a fresh effort, and step-by-step submission under His leading gives a rich experience.
The return of the lost brings joy in heaven and among the heavenly host, and is met with a feast rather than accusations of wrath. The father's love is yearning and ready to receive, running to meet the son and rejoicing that the son thought dead is alive, and His heart yearns for the sinner even while the sinner is far away. Every longing to return is the pleading of the Spirit drawing the wanderer back, and this welcome of the repentant is a reason for ministers to show warmth, courtesy, and love. The erring who repent are met with pity, forgiveness, and joy because the son recognizes his sin, feels his need, and returns to his father as the one who can supply it.
Though one has been a prodigal and has separated from God and stayed away long, God is ready even now to meet him, accept him, and pardon all his transgressions if he will come. Christ presents to the erring one the message of mercy, Come, for all things are now ready, inviting him to come to Him for life and cleansing from sin when he lays hold upon Him. The way back is humble, and it must not be neglected with false hopes lest he perish in his sins, for serving sin and the flesh and the devil brings only poor wages, so he must turn and live and seek strength for a fresh effort.
The father gently assures his resentful elder son that he remains continually with him and shares fully in all the household's blessings. Welcoming back the lost brother takes nothing away from the elder son, whose place and inheritance stand secure. What the father gives is free gift from love, not wages to be earned by long service or hardship. The elder son in his cold jealousy and refusal to rejoice pictures those who serve for reward and begrudge mercy to sinners. The father pictures the Heavenly Father, who does not abandon the straying but watches, seeks, forgives without reproach, and restores the repentant to sonship and honor.
Father's Assurance and Setting
The father answers the resentful elder son with patient assurance that the son is continually with him and that all that the father has belongs to him, expressing unbroken relationship, companionship, generosity, and full share in the blessings of the household. The assurance is given alongside the explanation that welcoming the returned son is right, because the lost brother has been found, and the father seeks by it to soften the elder son's heart and draw him from jealousy into rejoicing. His welcome is fitting because Christ came to recover the lost, not to condemn them.
Welcoming the returned brother takes nothing away from the elder son, whose place and possessions remain secure and undiminished. He is still called to recognize the returned wanderer as his brother and to join in rejoicing rather than standing apart. Celebrating is right and fitting because the younger brother was lost and is found, was dead in sin and is alive again. That joy over the repentant one who was dead to filial affection and now has returned is not wrong, for he needs pity, love, and forgiveness.
The setting of these words is the story of a younger son who asked for a portion of the estate to separate his interest from his father's and manage it according to his own inclination, though rightfully he could claim nothing and should have had nothing. The father complied and gave the undeserved treasure, and the son selfishly withdrew to a distance so as not to be troubled by counsel or reproof and even to forget that he had a father. He felt no obligation to his generous father, braced his selfish rebellious spirit with the thought that part of the property was his, despised restraint, rejected mutual obligation, and was fully determined to be happy by using his portion for his own pleasure in any way he chose without advice or restraint. After spending all by sinful indulgence in extravagant pleasure, he was visited by famine, felt pinching want, regretted his course, was left destitute of the means he had squandered, and came down to the low business of feeding swine. Such ruin by selfish indulgence is also pictured as sinking lower and lower by habitual wine-drinking until courage and God-given manhood are lost and the mind and judgment drift under Satan's control with no power to leave the snare.
The parable belongs to Christ's way of teaching by a familiar story from daily life to illustrate immortal truth and remind hearers of the spiritual and unseen. It is held up as a most pathetic and touching illustration of truth, coming right to the point without long, farfetched, complicated reasoning, drawing things both new and old from His treasure-house. It touches the heart and awakens sympathies, commending truth to the conscience, while leaving hearers free to accept or reject it without forcing belief.
God's Love for Sinners
The parable is a revelation of pitying love for those who stray from home, showing that even when they turn away they are not left in misery nor abandoned in kindness and tenderness. The father in the story stands for God, whose longing, watchfulness, and readiness to welcome and provide for the absent son as His own declare His forgiving love toward the sinner who returns. He takes the first step to seek, and He is ready to save all who allow Him to bring them home, which is a call to cooperate earnestly with Him in seeking the lost sheep and winning back the prodigal.
The father is the Heavenly Father, who welcomes every repentant soul without reproach and without reminders of past unworthiness, for penitence is what is required. He compassionately receives those who repent, forgives sin, receives the sinner as a son, and restores him to honor. That reception covers the returning one with Christ's righteousness and gives him a place at the Father's table with provision as His own, while the assurance to the one who stayed shows that welcoming the repentant does not diminish the place of the other but invites recognition of a brother and joining in rejoicing.
The humble, contrite, and faithful who love and serve God are welcomed into His presence and remain in His favor. To be blessed by seeing God is to abide always in His love, with access granted to His throne of grace and a share in all that is His. The father's assurance that the son has always remained with him and that all the father's possessions are already his reflects the welcome and lasting blessings of the Father's house, which encourage people to give their hearts to God and call one who has left Him to return and receive God as Father.
Infinite love is seen in the gift of the beloved Son for the fallen race, which made a channel for the outflow of infinite love so that all who believe are restored again to favor. Christ's dying love assures the sinner of acceptance, peace, and love. The way God will deal with the erring who come back in repentance gives grand themes for thought and a solid foundation for faith, so that nothing more need be asked, and believing leads to obedience to all of God's commandments and to life in Jesus Christ.
Jesus yearns after sons and daughters who are acting as the prodigal and longs to do them the good He would delight to do. He is kept from doing it by the perversity of character seen when those who claim to keep the commandments transgress the law and use their entrusted talents to counterwork God.
Unearned Gifts Not Wages
The father's assurance that the son is always with him and that everything he has belongs to him shows that what is given in the household is a free expression of love, not payment for work done. Nothing needs to be earned by toil or penance in order to obtain a gift or secure a reward; all that is needed is to trust that love and receive what is already offered. That tender appeal is directed to those who, like the Pharisees, already enjoy special privileges from God yet serve in hope of reward rather than from love. The elder son's secure place in the household does not excuse jealousy and criticism, for watching for his brother's faults and accusing him reveals a selfish, unforgiving spirit that misrepresents God and shuts out His light.
The elder son already possessed his father's companionship and a share in all his possessions, but he failed to recognize the privileges that were already his. His jealousy and complaint at the welcome given to the repentant prodigal expose that failure, showing resentment toward a reception that took nothing away from him. The father's words at the same time express continuing love and welcome, even while laying bare selfishness and an unforgiving spirit.
To endure hardships and bear burdens and then claim long service as grounds for a larger reward is error, as though work could earn salvation. Such faultfinding and complaint mark an un-Christlike spirit, and that spirit spoils the service itself.
Enjoying the privileges of sonship requires complying with its conditions, for belonging carries responsibilities as well as blessings. This means receiving Christ, obeying His word, and making Him supreme and all in all. The son must meet God on God's ground and not his own, with cordial assent and willing obedience to His terms, renouncing the favor and friendship of the world, walking according to His Word, acknowledging Christ as King and letting Him reign in the soul. He must remain under the Father's care without wandering away again, as the found sheep must remain in the fold under the shepherd's care and not renew its wanderings. Claiming a son's share therefore calls for giving the whole life and not money alone, with real sacrifice, personal effort, self-denial and obedience, submitting to direction and control and repaying love by obedience.
Elder Brother's Jealous Resentment
The elder son had stayed at home with his father in outward faithfulness, yet his closeness and share in all his father had did not keep him from a cold, jealous, self-righteous, selfish, stubborn and unforgiving spirit. When his brother was welcomed home he answered with self-willed complaint, criticism, faultfinding, contempt and resentment toward his father's joy, refusing to forgive, to sympathize, or to rejoice at the return. His place in the household and his share in the father's gifts, which were unearned gifts of love and not wages for service, gave him no excuse for jealousy or for watching for faults and accusing his brother. That resentment and refusal to share the father's mercy and love is the warning of the verse, calling instead for tender sympathy, forgiveness and glad acceptance of the repentant.
He met the returning brother with suspicion, dislike, distrust and unkindness instead of patience, forbearance, kindness and tenderness. He magnified mistakes, put evil surmising on his brother, and treated thoughtless errors as deliberate sins rather than humbling himself and loving his brother with kindness and courtesy. Some who are called Seventh-day Adventists act the same way toward returning souls and toward those who most need their help. Those who know by experience what it feels like to be met with distrust must not cherish dislike, retaliate, treat others as they have been treated, or show that same elder-brother spirit in labor for others, but must keep Christ's prayer before the mind and answer it in daily attitude and practice.
In the parable the elder brother represents the Pharisees, who enjoyed special privileges from God but served in hope of reward rather than from love. He represents unrepenting Israel, which had resisted mercy and grace, neglected opportunities and rejected messengers, and which refused to recognize publicans and sinners as brothers to be sought, forgiven and brought to everlasting life. He represents also many handling sacred things who feel righteous and faithful in duty, think they need no repentance, expect commendation and honor, contrast their own course with the prodigal's, and cannot sympathize with the father's joy in receiving the wandering one back. In particular he represents established church members with an envious, unconverted spirit who begrudge care and attention given to new believers, and whose attitude can hinder God's work.
Watching for faults, accusing his brother, and refusing to share the father's mercy misrepresents God and keeps him from receiving God's light. By that very unwillingness to receive his repenting brother and to rejoice at his return he proves his own need of repentance. He needs to humble himself, put away evil surmising, and learn to love as the father loves, so that all who claim to love God may properly represent Him by welcoming and rejoicing over the penitent instead of resenting them.
Seeking and Welcoming the Lost
The verse calls for tender sympathy, forgiveness, and glad acceptance of the repentant rather than reproach, resentment, harsh judgment, or condemnation. Those who have erred suffer in feeling and are often desponding and discouraged, and they need pity, help, sympathy, and above everything else free forgiveness, matching the father's great joy at his son's return. The elder brother's cold, jealous, self-righteous spirit failed to share that joy, standing stubbornly and selfishly by while his brother struggled and received a tender welcome, and his closeness to the father and share in all that was his only exposes the wrongness of looking down on straying people instead of helping bring them back. Trying to make the erring feel where they have erred and keeping their error before them is a natural but wrong course of brother toward brother, and the lost are to be treated as objects of loving concern and compassion and led to repentance rather than responded to harshly.
God's people are to cooperate earnestly with Him in seeking the lost sheep, winning back the prodigal, and bringing truth close to hearts. That means going into the wilderness to search for, find, and bring back the bewildered, carrying the burden and hunting for souls, rather than wounding and driving the sheep away. Indifference and careless disregard for souls ready to die refuses the spirit of the true shepherd who goes after the lost and calls the distressed to return, and refuses to join all heaven in rejoicing when the lost are found and restored. Practicing these lessons involves eternal interests and requires careful study, a true representation of the tender, loving, pitying care of the Father who receives the repentant with the joy of an earthly father receiving a long-lost son returning in penitence.
Church members who have had labor bestowed on them must not murmur when ministers leave constant labor for the church to seek and save the lost, or when wandering people and new believers receive attention and labor. To speak unjust sentiments as though the church had been robbed, to become envious and jealous over that attention, and to begrudge the welcome given to the lost son reveals the elder brother's resentful spirit of jealousy and self-interest, though he already had his father's presence and share. Such selfishness without the Spirit of Christ, who left the ninety and nine to seek the lost sheep, sorely displeases God, is seen by Him in word and attitude, and hinders the saving of souls that every converted soul is required to seek. Those who love truth and love Christ do the opposite, loving those for whom Christ died, rejoicing over rescued sinners, refusing to hold up the church while neglecting perishing souls around them, and striving by strength, talent, yoke-bearing, precept and example to make the ministers' labors for the lost a perfect success. A living church is not a gossiping church planting doubt, questioning, evil surmising, and jealousy while expecting to be constantly fed with sermons and doing no righteousness in its own homes or in the church, but an earnest, working church that carries the message of salvation, bears light, stretches out its hands all the day in burden for souls and sincere prayer, hunts for souls, and seeks to save those that are lost when Christ is formed within as the hope of glory.
Those who know by experience what it feels like to be met with distrust, suspicion, and unkindness must not cherish dislike, retaliate, treat others as they have been treated, or show that same elder-brother spirit in labor for others. The returning son was met by the elder brother with suspicion, dislike, distrust, unkindness, and an unforgiving spirit instead of patience, forbearance, kindness, and tenderness, and some will act the same way toward returning souls who most need help. Instead, those who have gone wrong are to be given room to recover and not harshly repulsed, with the prayer of Christ kept before the mind and answered in daily attitude and practice.
The parable encourages prodigals far from the Father's house and perishing with hunger, thorough backsliders in the service of sin, and those seeking the Lord for the first time, that those who have left the Father's house can even now return to God and be brought back and saved. That return is an immediate, wholehearted decision to be a Christian from that day, turning square about to leave the service of Satan and of sin, coming with a humble heart, confession, contrition, and truth received into the life, without delay. It brings pardon and love, a purified mind and changed purposes, cleansing, restoration to the Father's house and to His service, open-armed reception, and strength for a fresh effort, and step-by-step submission under His leading gives a rich experience.
The return of the lost brings joy in heaven and among the heavenly host, and is met with a feast rather than accusations of wrath. The father's love is yearning and ready to receive, running to meet the son and rejoicing that the son thought dead is alive, and His heart yearns for the sinner even while the sinner is far away. Every longing to return is the pleading of the Spirit drawing the wanderer back, and this welcome of the repentant is a reason for ministers to show warmth, courtesy, and love. The erring who repent are met with pity, forgiveness, and joy because the son recognizes his sin, feels his need, and returns to his father as the one who can supply it.
Though one has been a prodigal and has separated from God and stayed away long, God is ready even now to meet him, accept him, and pardon all his transgressions if he will come. Christ presents to the erring one the message of mercy, Come, for all things are now ready, inviting him to come to Him for life and cleansing from sin when he lays hold upon Him. The way back is humble, and it must not be neglected with false hopes lest he perish in his sins, for serving sin and the flesh and the devil brings only poor wages, so he must turn and live and seek strength for a fresh effort.