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 .

Describe the God you've rejected. Describe the God you don't believe in. Maybe I don't believe in that God either.

We are free to fight sin, and free to win; but we must still fight.

How could a good, all-powerful God allow suffering?

Tolerance is not the absence of belief. Tolerance is how your beliefs teach you to treat other people

Religion operates on the principle 'I obey-therefore I am accepted by God.' But the operating principle of the gospel is 'I am accepted by God through what Christ has done-therefore I obey.'

Jesus was much more interested in the quality of the people's response to him than in the quantity of the crowd.