Education may be about unlearning as much as it is learning.  We need to let go of bad ideas in order to make room for the good ones.  People tend to have difficulty doing that.  We cherish our beliefs or ideas to the point of protecting them from a greater truth.  Being comfortable with what we think we know outweighs the discomfort of being open to new truth.  Biblical truth is the hardest one when it comes to this.  Letting go of old ideas seems foreign to us.  Fear starts creeping in our mind when we are challenged.  Faith becomes more about keeping our thinking simple and neat.  We do miss real chances to mature when we let this happen.

Luke 15 is one of those chapters we tend to miss just from being familiar with it.  The story of the Prodigal Son is one that we hear from our earliest years in church.  Now one reason is because the story is so central to our understanding of Jesus.  We do need to hear the story taught on a regular basis.  But always be careful we don't get so comfortable we miss what God wants to say.  Knowing what you once learned may interfere with the fresh encounter with God.  My mind and heart picked up new insights last week while again studying the story.  Let me confess to personally coming to this chapter often for myself.  God just seems to connect to me in this tale of two wayward sons and a loving father.  This makes me no better than anyone else but it is true.

You have to find your place in the story.  All of us lived the life of the first son who wasted wealth given to him by his father.  Those of us saved by grace went through that same experience in one way or the other.  Maybe we didn't live a wild life or go through the mud but we did need forgiveness.  Far too many of us know what it is like to be the older brother.  He is a picture of those who stop learning to the point of being angry.  He resents both his father and his brother.  He views life as unfair and unjust.  Sounds like far too many people that I know.  Religion is only about performance and achievement.  Grace is a familiar word and a foreign concept.  It's a word in our hymns but not very present in our hearts. 

Maybe we miss how God is portrayed in lavishing His grace into our world.  He intends for joy to be the key note of our faith.  Relationships matter greatly to God.  He is seen not counting up tasks completed before offering mercy.  Religious people in Jesus day could not wrap their mind around such a God.  Now you know why they will reject that notion completely not matter what Jesus says or does.  They cannot unlearn their wrong ideas to get a handle on the gospel.  It costs them everything.  It still does the same today.

Bro. Trey