Divine Dining April 9, 2026 Devotional

LUKE 15:11-16 | ¹¹ Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. ¹² The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the wealth that will belong to me.’ So he divided his assets between them. ¹³ A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant region, and there he squandered his wealth in dissolute living. ¹⁴ When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that region, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵ So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that region, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. ¹⁶ He would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything.

When Jesus speaks of the necessity of His suffering and death, He does not mean that He was a victim of inevitable forces, or that God was compelled to enter the human story in the person of His Son and be crucified. Throughout the gospel narrative, Jesus is choosing to go to Jerusalem knowing He will be condemned and killed. He could have avoided that outcome in a dozen different ways. His death was necessary in a different way.

It was necessary because of the alienation and pain we bring into our lives through our brokenness, rebellion, and pride which separate us from the divine source of life, health, and peace. Jesus portrays this in the story of the two prodigal sons.

The younger son dishonors his father by wishing him dead and asking for his inheritance in advance. He wastes a third of the family’s generational wealth, leaving Jewish territory and living riotously with Gentiles. He rebels against his father and his religious traditions, and ends up a friendless failure, surrounded by pigs and eating their food.

Have you ever rebelled, made up your own code, or wasted your resources in “riotous behavior?”

Gracious God,

Part of me wants to write my own life rules and rule my own life, spending my resources for idle or corrupt pleasures and rejecting Your authority. Forgive me. Let me know Your gracious love and deep      forgiveness.

Amen.