Neither son loved the father for himself. They both were using the father for their own self-centered ends rather than loving, enjoying, and serving him for his own sake. This means that you can rebel against God and be alienated from him either by breaking his rules or by keeping all of them diligently. It 's a shocking message: Careful obedience to God's law may serve as a strategy for rebelling against God .

Nothing is more important than to learn how to maintain a life of purpose in the midst of painful adversity.

If you say: I believed in God, I trusted God and He didn't come through - You only trusted God to meet your agenda.

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.

A lack of generosity refuses to acknowledge that your assets are not really yours, but God's.

As long as we think we are not that bad, the idea of grace will never change us.

If we give God things in hope that they'll earn us blessings, we're really not doing anything for him. It's for ourselves.