The best clothes in the house would have been the father's, a sure sign that the son's status had been restored.
This is what my father meant.
'I won't wait until you pay off all your debts.
I won't wait until you've worked yourself to the bone.
You don't get to come back into this house by earning the qualifications through your own strength.
I just accept you.
I will cover your nakedness, poverty, and rags with the garments of my position and honor.' --- p.50

Through the brothers in the parable, Jesus shows us two basic ways people seek happiness and satisfaction.
One is the path of moral conformity, the other is the path of self-discovery.
Both are lenses that color our outlook on life and frames that shape our worldview.
Both are paths to finding one's own meaning and value, to solving the world's evils, and to distinguish between right and wrong.
--- p.60

The two brothers had the same thoughts.
Both resented their father's authority and sought to escape it.
Both of them wanted to be in a position where they could influence their father.
In other words, both sons rebelled.
In terms of method, one was very bad and the other was extremely kind.
Both were lost sons who had strayed far from their father's heart.
Do you see now what Jesus was teaching? Neither of the two sons loved their father.
Both of them were only using their father to achieve selfish goals, not because they loved him and served him happily.
It means that there are two ways to rebel against God and turn away from Him.
One is to break His rules, and the other is to diligently keep all His rules.
It's a shocking message.
How striving to obey God's laws can actually be a strategy of rebellion against Him.
--- pp.67~68

My brothers believe that if they live a good life, their lives will be happy.
I believe that if you work hard to meet the standards, God has a duty to provide a smooth path.
So what if you're the older brother and your life is going awry? If you think you've lived up to your moral standards, you'll be furious with God.
For someone who has worked so hard to be a good person, such a thing would feel unfair! Conversely, what if life went wrong, when you clearly fell short of your standards? You'd be furious with yourself, drowning in self-loathing and internal pain.
If adversity strikes and you are unsure whether your life is good enough, you will oscillate miserably between two extremes: hating God and hating yourself.
--- pp.85~86

Whether as older or younger brothers, we all rebelled against our father.
They deserve to be alienated, excluded, and rejected.
The point of the parable is that forgiveness always comes with a price.
Someone has to pay the price.
There was no way for the younger brother to be reunited with the family unless the older brother made a sacrifice.
Our true brother paid our debt on the cross in our place.
There, His garments and dignity were stripped away so that we can clothe ourselves with dignity and status that we do not deserve.
Because Jesus was forsaken on the cross, we can be freely accepted into God's house by grace.
Because He drank the cup of eternal punishment there, we can share in the cup of the Father's joy.
Without this true brother's sacrifice, there is no other way for our Heavenly Father to accept us.
--- pp.125~126

Jesus came not simply to liberate a nation from political oppression, but to save us all from sin, evil, and death itself.
To bring humanity back to its original home.
So he did not come in strength, but in weakness.
The wanderings he went through when he came were ours to endure.
He was driven out of the Father's presence and was cast into the extreme despair and darkness of spiritual alienation in our place.
He personally bore all the curses and cosmic displacement of mankind for their rebellion.
To welcome us into our true home.
--- p.146

Jesus hates suffering, injustice, evil, and death.
So He came in person and overcame it all, and one day He will completely wipe it out from the world.
Knowing all this, Christians cannot be passive about hunger, disease, and injustice.
People including Karl Marx have criticized religion as “the opium of the people.”
The sedative called religion makes people passive in the face of injustice and only hope for “heaven after death.”
This might apply to other religions that teach that the material world is unimportant or illusory.
However, the God taught in Christianity hated the suffering and oppression of this material world so much that he willingly entered into it and fought against it.
If properly understood, Christianity is not the opium of the people, but rather a soothing elixir.

--- pp.161-162