Go Big

Please read Luke 15:11-31

prod•i•gal
1. recklessly extravagant
2. having spent everything

Dozens of books—entire series of books, even—have been based on this well known parable. A few weeks ago I read one of the most recently published: Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller. In this parable, says Keller, “Jesus is showing us the God of Great Expenditure, who is nothing if not prodigal toward us, his children. God’s reckless grace is our greatest hope.”

The father in Jesus' story represents God: Jesus' own father and our father in heaven. This father knew the degree of his sons' selfishness, the magnitude of the younger son’s offenses, and the depth of the older son's resentment. Yet he loved each without reserve and with everything he had, without regard for how his sons would respond or what others might think. If anyone in the story is "prodigal," it's the father. The man knew how to "go big" with his love.

God is a "go big" God. He is absolute in all of who he is. When it comes to loving you and me, he does it extravagantly, immeasurably, unconditionally, and unstoppably.

I don’t even come close to loving this way. But I want to. God, my hope is in your reckless grace. Please teach me to receive it fully, so I can learn to spend it freely.

"Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.”
—Ephesians 5:1, The Message

"Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love."
—1 Corinthians 13:13, The Message

Krysti Hall