I want to go a little deeper with the message I gave yesterday on Facebook live. If you did not get a chance to see that message you can go to the Praise Community Fellowship Facebook page and it is available.
I see our nation as the Prodigal son. I completely understand that there are many good people in our nation and there are many Christians who completely understand what I am going to address but I want to give us all something to think about.
In the parable, the Father gives the younger son what he requests, which would have been out of the ordinary and would have been considered very disrespectful in the culture of Jesus’ time. But the Father basically says, to him, “Thy will be done!” Fully knowing exactly what was about to unfold in his younger sons life. So the younger son takes the assets, which could have been used for good and for the family and many other positive things, and decides to completely waste them on himself in indulgent ways. The younger son eventually discovers, what I’m sure the Father already knew, that the fun, freedom, and fulfillment that he thought he was going to find out in the world turns out to be a mirage.
The Father allowed his son to discover that without having boundaries and self control and without having someone to guide and remind of those boundaries the world can be very dangerous and can quickly take away all that we think is so important to us.
We were created to be creators. He allows us to be creators of children, creators of businesses and science and products and services and have dominion over the earth. This creative spirit was a gift from God and was granted to us out of love so that we could create beautiful things and tools to make the world a better place to live for all people. God’s ultimate reason for our creation, His grand purpose, was for us to Worship and Glorify Him out of our love for Him. We were created to Glorify Him in all our successes, in all our accomplishments, in all our celebrations, and also in all our failures and setbacks. Gods ultimate design was for us to make Him first in all things. We were created to enjoy this beautiful world but doing so with great reverence and thankfulness to the one who made it all possible. But somewhere we lost that knowledge and desire to worship our creator. We became self worshipping.
Now we find ourselves living in a world where there is uncertainty and many of the things we have taken for granted our entire life have all of a sudden been taken away. The bible tells us in Psalm 145:8 “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” How many years of prosperity have we all enjoyed? He has been patient and kind and abounding in steadfast love toward all of us and yet we seemed to have kept pushing the boundaries on all of his laws and too often have completely forgotten about Him. We have been living as if there is no tomorrow in our abundance and too often in our arrogance. We have been worshipping idols! We call them athletes, music stars, movie stars, our money and our things, and have been moving further and further from Gods ways and truths. We are the prodigal sons and daughters of this parable.
So what do we do? Return to Me says the Lord!
Put yourself in God’s shoes if you dare. Imagine being the good father granting us our insatiable desires and watching us live with complete abandon with little or no regard of thanks or worship to the one who has made our magnificent lives possible. What would you think?
But the parable of the prodigal son doesn’t end as a mystery. The reveal is the son makes a decision brought on by suffering and by reviewing his own actions. Here is what the prodigal says in the parable after experiencing the loss of everything he thought was so important to him, “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.
Here are the key lines of that last paragraph:
- When he came to his senses
- I have sinned against heaven and you
- So he got up and went to his father
I ask myself, “Isn’t it time for me to come to my senses and realize that I too need to put God in His rightful place in my life which is making Him #1. I believe it is time for me to re-evaluate and to re-prioritize my life. I am going to go the God and repent and to ask for forgiveness. I hope you too will join me in returning to Him. That is how we will be restored. But the restoration that I truly desire is not so we get back to the way things were, that would not be restoration. No I want to be restored to God and begin living life under His authority and blessings just like that of the returning prodigal son. What I find interesting in that parable is that when the son comes back home, it’s not that things got better as far as the things of life, what became real to the son is he finally understood and appreciated all the goodness he had before he decided to leave his fathers circle of blessing. Remember, you can never be out of the circle of God’s love but you can be outside the circle of God’s blessing. It just may be possible that that is where we find ourselves today. Outside of the circle of blessing. The Good News! There is a way back and our Father is waiting and watching for our return with a ring and a robe and a fatted calf. Oh how wonderful our God is! He is crying out to us, “Return to Me!”
with much love, pastor Kent