Smithville Christian High School: How great is the love of God

God’s love for you is excessive, wild, and lavish, students at Smithville Christian High School were told today.

In the second chapel of Spiritual Emphasis Week, spiritual life director Gord Park read a Bible story from Luke 11, commonly known as The Prodigal Son.

“Prodigal means wild, excessive, lavish,” Park told students, and the son in the story is seen that way because he squanders his entire share of the family inheritance in wild living.

But the story is really about a prodigal father, Park said, because the father’s love for his wayward child is even more wild, lavish, and excessive than the son’s wasteful spending.

In the story Jesus tells, the father provides a robe, a ring, and sandals for his returning child, which the Jewish audience would have understood hearkened to a prophecy from the book of Ezekiel. The son had broken every rule of family loyalty and community standards, yet the father signals that his love, his blessing, and his generosity are not affected. “This is a sign that he is still family, a signal that he is to be honoured,” Park said.

The same is true for you, Park told students.

“No matter what you may have squandered, no matter what you may have done, God loves you.” God allows us free will, but pours love, grace, and mercy into our lives, even when we fail. Park said he prays that students profoundly experience God’s love for them.