Faith is Not a To-Do List

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Posted by: Brittany Riva, Program Director | Monday, April 13th, 2026 ( 9:03am)

But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’—Luke 15:29-30 

Remember the parable of the prodigal son? You know, the kid who basically snubs his family, grabs his inheritance, blows it, comes home thinking that he MIGHT get to be a slave in his father’s house…only to find his dad welcoming him back with open arms and a big party?

Do you also remember the older brother? The one who is mad, won’t join in the party, and wonders why HE doesn’t get rewarded for his good behavior?  

It’s easy to see how the prodigal son was enslaved by his foolish choices, but we sometimes miss the older brother facing a sin of his own. He was held captive by a “religious” heart of law keeping. The prodigal accepts the feast and enjoys the love and freedom his Father has given him, but the older brother doesn’t recognize that he had this love and freedom all along.   

My testimony is a lot like the brother in the prodigal story.  

Growing up in West Michigan to a mom and dad who both worked in ministry, I was surrounded by the Gospel from the time I came out of the womb. Early on in my youth it seemed logical that if Jesus is who He says He is, then He’s the only one who can save me if I do the right thing and follow the rules. So follow the rules I did. 

However, for many of us, college is a soft launch into the real world with a little more freedom, making more decisions, and finding your own way. My college experience was no different. I still loved Jesus and had some wonderful Christian friends, but I also started to get a taste of making MY own choices. Were all these “rules” of faith something I actually believed in? Eh, maybe some of them.  

Then, I woke up...or maybe I should say, the Lord woke me up. Right around the time I graduated college, former high school mentors of mine—a married couple who poured into me spiritually and relationally—lost their child at full-term. I was heartbroken. As I read their updates on social media, I watched as they shared verses from the psalms and how they were being encouraged and upheld by the body of Christ.   

Their trust in God through such tragedy made me realize they had something I didn’t. There was NO WAY I would be able to say those things if I went through that experience. I was supposed to be a Christian, but their reaction to this loss was so different than what mine would be. What was their faith based on that mine wasn’t? Thankfully in His grace, God would gently begin to show me. 

After moving back home and attending a local church, God began to help me see the foundation of true faith. I realized I wasn’t all that unlike the older brother in the prodigal son story. Like him, I was so busy being “religious” and checking what I thought were the right boxes that I was missing the freedom I already had through Jesus. 

It was then that I understood that God’s word was not about what we must do to earn a relationship with Him, but a story about how far Jesus would go to be in relationship with us. I realized that the Gospel isn’t about a to-do list. It isn’t about doing good things, so I get good things. In fact, believing we need to follow a set of religious “rules” can trap us just as much as the world’s temptations do. My rule-keeping and striving to accomplish things didn’t get me any closer to perfection. It didn't earn me more points with Jesus. And it certainly didn’t lead to freedom and salvation.   

So, when we find ourselves trying to earn God’s love through the things we do, may we remember that the pressure to perform can bind us just as tightly as the things that lead us astray. Everything we do—both good and bad—needs to be given to Jesus. Because whether you are the prodigal or the brother who stayed, the Father welcomes all His children home with open arms. 

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