“Look!, All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fatted calf for him!”
Part 3: The Selfish prayer
We have talked through the “my share” prayer and attitude and also the “humble sinner’s” prayer and attitude. Today let us go through the “selfish prayer” and attitude.
For those of us who have always been in church, raised in church, and even served in church for many Sundays this is for you. You might begin to feel like you are like the paint on the wall at church, always there. Faithfully serving and never complaining, just doing the Lord’s work you might say. You have even got to know the staff of the church and most of the people serving. You are “part of the church”. You seem to be moving in and out serving every week with a great attitude. You are the go to person for most things in your ministry area and you never even get paid.
You are a rock star, until you find out that someone close to you who does not deserve much gets what you seem to have been working for. Meet the prodigal’s brother. Sound familiar? It should because it happens all over the church. Verses 29 and 30 spell out his disdain for how this whole thing went down. Reading the verse, there are a lot of punches he throws: “Look!, I’ve been slaving… you never…but when this son of yours…you kill the fattened calf”. I hope you get the picture.
When the father hears of all these personal punches being thrown at him he responds in the only way God can respond to one of his children, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours….we had to celebrate, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” Somewhere down the road the other son lost his focus on serving and landed on selfishness and pride. Don’t miss the reason the father was celebrating, the son was lost and is now found!
Today, take a deep hard look at your attitude towards serving the Lord. We hear about the crazy testimonies and radical ways some very lost people find Christ and they seem to get a lot of attention. I was in a room full of men while they gave their testimonies. I heard some really whopper stories about very lost men finding Christ in the middle of drugs, losing their lives, and much more and then finding Christ. I was next. I did not have any crazy story or radical transformation. In comparison, my testimony was, in my eyes, dull compared to the ones I just heard. After I was finished one of the men whose testimony was radical came up to me with tears in his eyes and told me that was amazing.
Let us never get tired of the real reason Christ came to set us free. Let us never turn selfish and inward in our thoughts, attitude and prayers. Put on the mind of Christ and rejoice when someone finally comes home.
Prayer: Father, in you we have it all. Help us never forget to welcome with open arms of love those in this life who are seeking Christ no matter what situation they seem to be in. Just like the prodigal son coming home, let us run with open arms to embrace one of God’s lost children coming home. I pray that we let the Lord correct and restore while we love and disciple them. In Jesus name, amen.
Let It Go 
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