Father's Love for the Older Brother

Holy Spirit has been speaking to me about the Older Brother in the story of the Prodigal son, most of us are familiar with how the prodigal asks and gets his inheritance only to blow it on loose living but looks to return because of losing everything.  In Luke 15 the prodigal seems to be the main character but I believe it is really the father that is the starring role.  The Eldest son is angry when he finds out that his brother is having a party thrown for him after he has taken 1/3 of the inheritance and blown it on prostitutes and wild living.  God began to speak to me that at times I was like the elder brother, serving doing the things I thought God wanted me to do but my heart at times was far from Him.  The relationship of the father to the eldest son was clearly strained, as the eldest son is angry saying that he had been serving the father all these years but he didn't even get a goat for his hard service.  What was clouding the relationship of the father to eldest son?  Why was he so angry that his brother was invited into the most intimate of meals (the covenant meal- seen by the killing of the fatted calf)?  The eldest son based his relationship with the father on his serving him and I believe this service was motivated not by love but by fear that the father wouldn't give him anything if he didn't work.  The eldest son's view of his father was one of a taskmaster that required service to receive any reward but even though he claimed to have done everything the father asked (an exaggeration for sure) he still only felt his service was worth a goat.  In Luke 15: it says, “Now his older son was in the field, and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.  And he summoned one of the servants and began inquiring what these things could be.  “And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound.’  But he became angry and was not willing to go in; and his father came out and began pleading with him.  But he answered and said to his father, ‘Look! For so many years I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends;  but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.  And he said to him, ‘Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours.  ‘But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.’”  You may not have realized but when the father divided the estate between the sons the younger son got 1/3 of the estate but the eldest son would have gotten 2/3 of the estate, so he was angry and resentful yet he owned 2/3 of the father's estate.  The eldest brother was working his own land but slaving and angry because he saw his father as a taskmaster making him do it.  The father says to the eldest son, "Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours."  When the father, the picture of the Heavenly Father, was pleading with his son to come in to the meal; he was inviting him into the covenant meal to have access completely to all that father had.  It was the eldest son's pride, serving from a place of fear and earning, his offense at his brother, and his distorted picture of this loving father that kept him from entering into the most astounding covenant opened to man.  To enter into the father's love and this covenant where the father offered everything, the eldest son would have to let go of what he was holding onto for life.  I am so thankful for the picture of this amazing father who responds to his son's disrespect, entitlement, and pride with such love and grace.  Our Father is always full of love and grace even when we are not, He is inviting us in even when we are desperately trying to serve Him to earn our blessings rather than resting in the covenant blessings that have been purchased for us.  Are you serving God through self-effort or are you letting go of your serving to let His love explode in you and through you to others?  Entering into the place of the Father's covenant, means that we cease from our striving and earning realizing that the reason the Father invited the eldest son into covenant was because he was a son.  Father has made us part of His family and He so much to pour out on us, all the blessings, life, and value all flow through relationship and not serving.  Serving is a wonderful thing when it flows from love and trust but a terrible taskmaster when done from self-effort and fear.

In Father's Love,
Bret