There are so many vital lessons from the prodigal son. Jesus Christ used this parable as an essential illustration to teach about the Kingdom of God and about the ever-loving kindness and mercy of God the Father.
The parable of the prodigal son is the sequel to two other parables in Luke 15, the parable of the lost ship (Luke 15: 3 – 7) and the parable of the lost coin (Luke 15: 8 – 10).
Both parables, including the parable of the prodigal son, presented God as the seeking savior, who goes out to look for the lost sheep, and the loving Father, whose arms are wide open for the repented sinner.
A prodigal son or child is referred to as anyone who leaves their parent’s house without the full approval of their parents to live an indulgent and frivolous lifestyle and later returns home to beg for forgiveness after squandering their parent’s wealth.
The lessons from the prodigal son are incredible life lessons that are effective for a beautiful Christian life, and the primary address is that God is a loving Father who cares so much for every one of His children.
So it doesn’t matter how far we have gone astray in our walk with God. His arms are always wide open, waiting for us to return home. He is our heavenly Father, ever ready to forgive us when we repent and return to Him. Let’s move further and briefly look into the summary of the prodigal son.
The Prodigal Son Summary And Moral Lesson
The Summary Of The Prodigal Son
The story of the prodigal son is about a wealthy man with two sons. And the younger son asks for his share of the father’s wealth, leaving the house and relocating out of town.
He engaged in an indulgent lifestyle and squandered all the money that he had, and he became destitute. Finally, he became a servant in a place where his daily meals were the remains of pigs.
So he decides he would be better off if he became one of his Father’s servants, so he returns home, apologizes to his father, and begs to be taken as one of his Father’s slaves.
But instead, when the father sees him arriving home, he calls for a celebration. You can read the story in Luke 15: 11 – 32.
The Moral Lesson
- One of the moral lessons from this story is that selfishness, greed, and too much love for material things, can cause one to betray his family and loved ones.
- We should be careful of the choice of friends we make.
- We should not be wasteful with our resources.
- It’s never too late to do what is right.
- If we don’t properly manage our wealth, we will end up in poverty.
What Is The Main Message Of The Prodigal Son?
What is the main message of the prodigal son? What does this story address in our lives as Christians? The main message of the prodigal son is about God being the gracious and loving Father, who is fervently waiting with open arms, and willing to welcome back to Himself any repentant sinner.
Though the title of the story is ‘the prodigal son and the word prodigal meaning wasted, we can see where it comes from looking at the story, how the son wasted part of his Father’s wealth and his time.
But the main point of this story is not about the son wasting part of the Father’s wealth and his time. Neither was it when he realized himself and thought of going back home to the Father, no. But it was the great and wonderful reception the Father gave to him, in that the Father ordered that they have a feast.
This is why many Biblical scholars have said the story should be about the Father, not the son. Hence the story should be titled ‘the loving father’ or ‘the parable of fatherhood’ rather than the prodigal son because it is the Father’s loving-kindness that makes it more interesting than the wastefulness of the son.
He was never treated as one who had wasted time and money. He was never degraded or considered less than he was before. The Father even covered him with a robe and gave him a ring. A sandal means his shame was covered, and his authority was restored to him.
This is what the Father does to us whenever we repent and return to Him, and His hands are always wide open, waiting for us to change from the world and follow Him. He will never despise or reject us anytime we repent of our sins.
10 Lessons From The Prodigal Son
1. We Cannot Survive Or Succeed Away From God
The moment we go away from God, we cannot succeed on our own. When you take a careful look at the story of the prodigal son, you will notice that his fall started when he decided to leave his Father.
He couldn’t manage himself; he got some friends that engaged in the indulgent lifestyle with him, finished everything he had, and afterward, then left him.
Then a famine struck, and everything got worse because he had already wasted his wealth on frivolities. He couldn’t survive away from his Father, and the best he could come up with was going to get a job that offered him a meal from the remains of swine.
So one of the lessons from the prodigal son is that we cannot survive or succeed on our own away from God. We can only end up misusing all we have, and when the storms of life strike, we’ll see how useless we are away from God.
2. The Deceptive Trap Of Sin
One of the lessons from the prodigal son’s parable is the destructive nature of sin. Sin means missing the mark, going against or below God’s standards. Sin is also trying to be independent of God.
Sin has always been deceptive and destructive, proposing happiness, but when one gets into it, it is nothing more than a mirage. And the more you go deeper, the more you get lost in it.
The prodigal son fell for this deception, and it only made him end up going further and further into sin. However, he later realized there was no way out of it except for him to accept that he was wrong and return to his Father, which is true repentance.
This is a lesson for us when we choose to sin against God and to continue on the path of sin. We should know that the more we try to find happiness away from God, we fall into the deceptive snare of sin, and there is no way out of it rather than repentance and turning back to God.
3. When We Rebel Against God, We Lose A Sense Of Purpose
In the tradition and customs of the Biblical days, it was unheard of and taken as rebellion if a son asked his Father for his inheritance when the Father was still very much alive and healthy. It was more like wishing the Father to die at that moment because inheritance was only shared after the death of the Father.
This is the height and level of the rebellion of the prodigal son. Naturally, we see it as evil, but in one way or the other, we do this same thing to God, our heavenly Father, almost on a daily basis.
We rebel against God by demanding to be independent, by not submitting totally to Him in some areas of our lives. As a result, we sometimes live as though we own our lives, and we care less about how our heavenly Father wants us to live.
And when we do this, we lose a sense of purpose, and sometimes like the prodigal son, we lose a sense of sonship and become a slave to sin. This is what rebellion can do to us, and it is one of the lessons from the prodigal son.
4. God Will Never Reject The Repented Sinner
God will never reject a repentant sinner, and this is one of the lessons from the prodigal son. It shows us that no matter what we do or how deep we have fallen into sin, God’s hands are always open wide to accept us back to Himself.
We can see how the prodigal son was welcomed back by the Father into the kingdom. Even after choosing not to acknowledge the Father by requesting his own share of the inheritance, the Father welcomed him when he returned, not regarding what he had done in his absence.
This is how God will welcome us back and will never reject us if we decide to return. It is left for the believers who are going astray to wake up from their slumber, repent, and return to God. Our heavenly Father has promised us to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1: 9).
5. We Get Lost When We Follow Our Will
God created every one of us with a purpose, which is to fulfill His will in every area of our lives. But we get lost when we decide to go our way and follow our own will and selfish desires.
We can see this in the prodigal son’s life, how he left his Father’s house, his true position, his purpose and place of duty to follow his own will, and he wanted to satisfy his own selfish desires.
But in the end, he mismanaged everything that was given to him, so he could not take care of himself when the storms of life came, and he had already cut himself out of his source.
This happens to us anytime we go far away from God, whenever we try to follow our own will and please our selfish desires. We get caught up in sin and lost in the world, and we will mismanage what we have and end up unfulfilled.
This is because God never created us to be independent of Him. We always need God, and we must always depend on God to survive and go through life and any challenges it brings.
6. It Is God’s Abundant Love That Leads Us To Repentance
The more we know and understand God’s goodness, the more we are drawn to Him, and the more we want to get closer to Him.
The prodigal son realized this, and the Bible says in Luke 15: 17 (NIV), “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!”
He remembered how loving his Father is even to his servants, so he said, “I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and you” Luke 15: 18 (NIV).
This is the true definition of repentance, and it begins with realizing how loving God is and how sinful you have been. Then, when we recognize the abundance of God’s love, we can come to repentance.
7. God Is Eagerly Waiting For Us To Return To Him
One of the lessons from the prodigal son is that God is eagerly waiting for us to return to Him. Luke 15: 20 (NIV) “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”
This text paints a beautiful picture of how our heavenly Father eagerly waits for us at the gate of the kingdom, with open arms to welcome us back whenever we realize our mistakes, repent and return to Him. He is waiting to give us that welcome warm embrace.
8. God Is A Loving Father
The story of the prodigal son presented God as the Loving Father, which is the crux of the entire story. You can see how God’s loving-kindness is displayed in the attitude of the Father; He loved the son irrespective of his rebellion.
So when the son repented of his sins and returned back to his Father, the Father did not send him away. This is how God will treat a repented sinner and a repented believer who backslides.
God is a loving Father that is willing to forgive us all of our sins whenever we repent and return back to him, and he will restore us back to the position we once had when we were with Him.
9. The Great Joy In Redemption
The great joy in redemption is one of the lessons from the prodigal son. This is evident in the feast the Father was about to throw for him because he had returned back to the Father.
Luke 15: 7 (NIV) says, “I say unto you, that likewise, joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.”
So when a soul repents and receives redemption, the same way the Father of the prodigal son was happy and decided to throw a feast for his return, that’s how God expresses joy, and the whole of heaven also joins in the great joy.
10. We Should Not Resent A Repented Brethren
The prodigal son’s elder brother was furious and angry because he had been faithfully serving His Father, and no feast had been thrown for him, and from his word, he was also not happy for his brother.
This is what some of us believers today do; our behavior is no different from that of the elder brother. We become resentful and angry at a repented sinner.
But we are supposed to rejoice with heaven and openly welcome the repented sinner. The prodigal son lesson for youth
One of the things that I’ve noticed and seen that is familiar and peculiar among youths is the spirit of rebellion.
Lawlessness among the youths is the order and trend of the day. The laydown laws have been questioned, and many want to be independent.
But let the youths today learn from the prodigal son’s story and amend their ways. Otherwise, if they continue on that evil path, destruction and doom await them. They should also understand that rebelling against God is evil.
Conclusion
Like sheep gone astray, some of us believers have lost our way through our selfishness and greed. We have rebelled against God’s choosing to go our path by choosing to follow our will.
But God’s arms are always wide open, waiting to accept and draw us back to Himself. So do not hesitate to run back to Him. There is forgiveness waiting for you and for every sinner willing to repent.
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