Younger brother, elder brother

Most of the time I share the good books that I read to Miss Oyan Lok.

But this time, she introduced me to a great book that I finished within a few weeks!

I think most Christian are familiar with the parable of the prodigal son shared by Jesus.
This book is mainly about that parable.

I've heard many preachers and seen many play played according to this parable.
But this is my first time to read something about it that amazes me!

OK. Enough of my bla beh bih bah.

The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller

Jesus is saying that both the irreligious and the religious are spiritually lost, both life-paths are dead ends, and that every thought the human race has had about hoe to connect to God has been wrong. ~pg. 13

Jesus's teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of older brothers than we'd like to think.

~pg. 19

The elder brother is not losing the father's love in spite of his goodness. but because of it. It is not his sins that create the barrier between him and his father, it's the pride he has in his moral record; it's not his wrongdoing but his righteousness that is keeping him from sharing the feast of the father. ~pg. 41

You can avoid Jesus as Savior by keeping all the moral laws. If you do that, then you have "rights." God owes you answered prayers, and a good life, and a ticket to heaven when you die. You don't need a Savior who pardons you by free grace, for you are your own Savior. ~pg. 43-44

Because sin is not just breaking the rules, it is putting yourself in the place of God as Savior, Lord and Judge just as each son sought to displace the authority of the father in his own life ~pg. 50

What are the signs of this lack of assurance? We have already mentioned one sign: Every time something goes wrong in your life or a prayer goes unanswered, you wonder if it's because you aren't living right in this or that area. Another sign is the criticism from others doesn't hurt your feelings, it devastates you. This is because your sense of God's love is abstract and has little real power in your life, and you need the approval of others to bolster your sense of value. You will also feel irresolvable guilt. When you do something you know is wrong, your conscience torments you for a long time, even after you repent. Since you can't be sure you've repented deeply enough, you beat yourself up over what you did. ~ pg. 72

It's not repentance that causes the father's love, but rather the reverse. The father's lavish affection makes the son's expression of remorse far easier. ~pg. 83

Mercy and forgiveness must be free and unmerited to the wrongdoer. If the wrongdoer has to do something to merit it, then it isn't mercy, but forgiveness always comes at a cost to the one granting the forgiveness. ~pg. 94

When we see the beauty of what he has done for us, it attracts our hearts to him. We realize that the love, the greatness, the consolation, and the honor we have been seeking in other things is here. The beauty also eliminates our fear. If the Lord of the Universe loves us enough to experience this for us, what are we afraid of? To the degree we "see his beauty" we will be free from the fear and the neediness that creates either younger brothers or elder brothers. ~pg. 99

But if it is really true that I am a sinner saved by sheer grace - at God's infinite cost -  then there's nothing he cannot ask of me. ~pg. 136

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This life that I have is given by Christ and the only way I know how to repay Him is to live this life for Him and Him alone.