LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE PRODIGAL SON

Though this is a short story, it is packed full of helpful insights in so many areas of our lives. For we all were or are prodigal children, in some form or another. In the story of the prodigal son, we see a young man that got freed up, then he got fired up and then he got fed up. Join me in this devotion, as we look inside the head and heart of this young prodigal and consider his thoughts and words at various stages of his reckless thinking, which led to reckless living, and his eventual repentance, as he returned to his father for mercy and forgiveness.

When at first we meet him in Luke 15:11-12, he had reached a point in his life where he was simply, fed up with his current life’s situation. We know that he was fed up at that point because Jesus continues to pour out the young lad’s sad discourse in the verses of chapter 15. His life at home must have been pretty predictable, so routine, so ordinary, so boring. But that was all going to change, because he had decided that he would take the plunge and ask his father for his part of his future inheritance and hit the road to freedom and leisure to a better life. A life of partying, good times and just all around fun living without any sensor ship, so he thought!

As the verses later reveal, the father gave in to his son’s request and in verse 13 not long after he got his inheritance, the son got all his personal belongings and took off to a distant country. He did not stay in town or close by his father’s house, I’m talking, he split, he got out of town! He got as far away as his legs and money could take him. Finally, He was free! Free to do as he pleased. There was no one, to tell him what to do! He was so free without any reigns of control.

Verse 13 however, reveals that he squandered his wealth on his new freedom. He was so free, yet it cost him all that he had. Isn’t that just like sin, It take us further than we want to go, cost us more than we want to pay and keeps us longer than we want to stay. Verses 14-16 tell us that, “….there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything”. He could not believe it, from parties to a pigsty. The more he thought about it the more fired up he became over his situation. He had reached the point that he never believed he could reach, he never dreamed it, but it was real, he was at a final low. He would have never thought, that pig slop could look so tasty. But it did.

There in the stench of pig mud and pig manure, he began to think. As he considered his situation, his thoughts began to go back to the life that he remembered growing up. A life that he had been willing to sacrifice so that he could enjoy a little fun. His friends now disgusted him and in fact, he disgust himself and he became fed up over the pickle that he had gotten himself in to. He suddenly went from a man who bought drinks, threw parties and had girlfriends to a man with nothing. An empty pocketbook has given some real wisdom to many a would be prodigals over the years and he was no different.

When he came to his senses over his situation,  he did not blame his father; he did not blame his employer or friends who would not sympathize with his condition, he accepted the responsibility for his own actions. He knew that his father was a man of mercy, and decided to appeal to that mercy as he went back home to make things right. Little did he know, that His loving father had been waiting on him to return.

Today friend, if you are in a similar situation and you know it’s because the more you’ve consumed, the hungrier you’ve become. The more you drink, the thirstier you get. The more pleasure that you seek, the sadder you get. Guilt has hollowed out and drying up your heart and now nothing satisfies you anymore. Do you feel it? Can you sense it? Well then, just admit it and run to your Heavenly Father for forgiveness. He is waiting!

 

Loving on you today sweet friend!

Bren

 

EASTER AND BELIEF PART 2

While the word "Easter" does not appear in the Bible and no early church celebrations of Christ's resurrection are mentioned in Scripture itself. Easter, like Christmas, is a tradition that developed later in church history for the children of God to remember and celebrate what Jesus did for the world through His birth, His death and His resurrection. In later years, the resurrection of Jesus was celebrated in the spring for centuries in Christendom before the word "Easter" was even adopted as a label for this occasion. The word itself is derived from an Old German root, ostern, for dawn or east, which is the time and place of the rising sun. This makes sense as a reason why a day commemorating Jesus’ resurrection would have begun to be called "Easter." Some Critics take issue because the Word "Easter" is derived from the name of a Germanic goddess of spring, Eastre. An English monk, Venerable Bede, who lived in the eighth century, made this view popular. However, this idea is not at all certain. In any case, even if the word "Easter" was associated with an ancient false goddess, it does not mean we cannot use the word today. We have many words in the English language that were connected with ancient false gods. For example, the word "cereal" comes from the name of an ancient goddess of agriculture, Ceres. The word "cloth" comes from Clotho, a spinster goddess who was said to spin the thread of life. The word "hymn" is thought to come from a god of marriage, Hymen, and in ancient times meant any song offered in praise or honor of a god or gods. But when we use "hymn" in church services we mean a song sung in praise of the one true God. When we use the word "cereal" we’re not thinking of a goddess much less, worshipping it, but of fruit loops or corn flakes. Cloth is a material used to make clothes to us and has nothing to do with a goddess, Clotho.

 

In the Old Testament God gave the Jews festivals in order to remind them of important experiences, days and events that they had been through. The festival of Trumpets is an example of how God transformed many pagan customs into a form of worship devoted to Him. The festival of Trumpets came on the new moon of the seventh month. The Jews even had a new moon celebration with the blowing of trumpets in Psalm 81:3. Yet, the moon was regularly worshipped as a god or goddess in other cultures. That’s where we get the name for "Monday." It was the day set aside in honor of the moon. If we were to apply the reasoning some people use to call the Easter celebration "pagan" to Israel’s worship system, which God gave them, we would be falsely painting a picture of paganism. Even the sun, universally worshipped as a god by pagan cultures, is used in Scripture to symbolize an aspect of Jesus’ glory. Luke called him "the rising sun" Luke 1:78. Jesus is also called the "bright Morning Star" in Scripture Revelation 22:16. God can use symbols misappropriated by pagans and transform them for his own use, and for acceptable worship. God transformed those institutions for his use just as he transformed pagan sacrificial and priestly systems for his use. He meant them to be transformed as vehicles for godly worship and Christians do the same thing with their worship on Easter. Today, on Easter Sunday, Christians believe and worship Jesus Christ and Him alone, and what a joyous occasion for us to celebrate!

Hold Fast,

Bren

EASTER AND BELIEF PART 1

I love Easter, but today because of what I believe about Christ and His resurrection, it has a deeper meaning. When I was 10 years old I walked an isle prompted by a preacher’s message to receive a baptism that I did not understand. It was a fun experience, but nothing in me changed. When I was 13 years old, I ask Christ into my life, yet my life never changed. That decision too, was prompted by a number of firry conversations that my uncle had had with me out of the book of Revelation.  Still, I continued to do the same old things that I had been doing, until God began to stir in me at the age of 18, the gospel of the cross and opened my spiritual eyes through the Truth that He had been placing in my heart from committed soul winners that had been sharing the gospel with me over a period of time. Upon His opening up my eyes, to the truth that had been shared with me, for the first time in my life, I really understood the difference between, having a head knowledge about who Christ was and what it was exactly, He did on the cross. Once I understood that clearly, I personally embraced it by receiving it, as the precious gift that it is. Luke 24:45-47 says this,  “Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: “And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” Once I got my salvation right, I was then properly baptized. Where before, it was like having the cart before the horse.

 

You see, like myself, many people make some sort of decision about Christ, but their decisions are based on what they believe about God, as mine were and not what His Word says about Him. In John 3:16 you will find this, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not parish, but have everlasting life.” You see many people misunderstand what that verse is saying. The word believeth does not apply to a person who believes in Jesus in his head or mind alone. Satan himself believes that, yet he will never be saved. Hitler believed in Christ, many people believe in Christ, yet have never been born again. That word believeth is and should always be paired with other verses in the scripture that speak of salvation. You must always understand the Bible as a whole and not dig out the verses you want and come up with your own interpretation, that was what I was doing. I thought, “if I just believed in Jesus”, then I was good to go, by what John 3:16 said, and that made me born again, so I thought! Besides, John 3:16 said nothing about being baptized. Theologically, I was just a mess! Yet, God broke through all my messed up thinking about Him and brought the light of His Truth to overshadow my way of thinking in order to see His. He looked at my heart and knew that I was trying to get to Him. As He stood at the door of my heart knocking, with His help, I was able to open my heart up and allow Him to come in. The greatest decision I have ever made. Your belief is most important to your salvation, but it must involve more than a head knowledge about Christ. It must come from the heart, not merely the head.

 

Happy Easter Sweet Friends,
Bren

EASTER AND THE BLOOD

Blood may only be an after-thought for some of us, as we celebrate this upcoming Easter holiday. Because, Easter is not a time to celebrate the past, but the future. The Children of God will begin to reflect and meditate on the resurrection and not the cross as well as their future beyond the grave; for that is what Easter provides those that are in Christ. Yet, without the cross, without the shedding of the blood and death of Christ, there would be no resurrection. While the resurrection is just as important, we should never forget the cross, the passageway to death and the grave. The cross provided for us all, the only solution to our greatest problem, which was a sin problem. The resurrection promises us that because He rose from the grave, those that are in Him will as well. Like me my friend, you were born into a fallen world, resigned to participate in a degenerate existence with no hope of recovery on our own. The pain of sin and death immediately attached itself to our life and put into perpetual motion the ravages of death, each day drawing us closer to our eternal demise. Our own wills had separated us from God and was our greatest enemy. It had sealed our fate as long as we chose to continue on the path without Christ and continue to walk in sin. Apart from the redeeming power of the blood of Jesus Christ, we were doomed. But God demonstrated His own love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, going about doing wrong,  not caring about Him or his ways, Christ died for us according to the scriptures, paraphrasing Romans 5:8. He took the beating that we deserved. His hands and feet bear our scars. His side bleed godly blood that had the power to set all mankind free to walk away from the life that they are living in and become new again. When I realized this and decided that the life that I was living was a life of sin and un-generated disgust. I realized that the best that I had to offer God, was as a filthy rag to His Holy nature. Yet for many years I struggled in the same deception that all men and women struggle in. Though many refuse to see their sin as God sees it, for me, my greatest problem is now solved!

 

Once I saw my sin and my ways as God saw them, I realized my need for the salvation that He was offering. How about you sweet friend? Can you too say, that at the point of surrendering your life to God, your biggest problem has been solved? Do you too understand and agree with why I am thankful for the blood that purchased me; or would you have to admit that you cannot see a difference in your life from the time before you say you came to Christ and afterwards. Has there been a change? Some people struggle with that question because they don’t really see a difference. Maybe you were a good person and have a hard time seeing your sin as God does. May I tell you that God’s Word declares that the best that you can do or offer Him, is as a filthy rag according to Isaiah 64:6. Maybe you might need to stop comparing yourself to all the so-called hypercritics and bad folks that you compare yourself with and compare yourself to what God sees and knows you to be. I John 1:9 tell us that, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.  Maybe sweet friend it is because while you have a wonderful head knowledge about God and you believe that Jesus came to earth to die, you have never really committed your life to Him by repentance. By having a holy sorrow for your sin and wanting to change. As Easter approaches, I am mindful of what it cost God to give His only Son, that He should suffer and die for someone like me, but He did, and I know it! Because I no longer bear the burden of having such a great problem any longer. Problem solved! How about you sweet friend? Can you celebrate this Easter knowing that because of His blood that covers your sins through believing and repenting, you can rejoice that you will be a part of the great resurrection that is to come? I sure hope so! Loving on you today!