Luke 15:12-16
“One day the younger son came to his father and said, ‘Father, eventually I’m going to inherit my share of your estate. Rather than waiting until you die, I want you to give me my share now.’ And so the father liquidated assets and divided them. A few days passed and this younger son gathered all his wealth and set off on a journey to a distant land. Once there he wasted everything he owned on wild living. He was broke, a terrible famine struck that land, and he felt desperately hungry and in need. He got a job with one of the locals, who sent him into the fields to feed the pigs. The young man felt so miserably hungry that he wished he could eat the slop the pigs were eating. Nobody gave him anything.” VOICE
Sometime last year I went to a laundromat and the first thing I saw was a sign that read “We wash, dry, and fold your clothes...” I could not take my eyes off of this sign and waited for the Lord to reveal what He was saying to me. Then He spoke and said that it is time for the prodigals to be washed by the cleansing water of the Holy Spirit and the clean water of His Word, and for His fire to burn all the dirt and the dross of the rebellious ways of the world in them so His sheep may return to His fold.
For this, God’s intentions are to restore them by freeing them from idolatry and planting in them a new heart and a new spirit on the inside of them. By putting His Spirit in them, He will remove their stubborn and stony heart and give them a heart that is willing, tender, and obedient to His will for them. This will open their eyes to recognize their wrongdoings, and with repentance, surrender to Him and renew their relationship with Jesus and learn to walk in righteousness, purity, and be set apart for Him, so they can begin to see His restoration in their lives (See Ezekiel 36:25-31).
Many of these prodigals are going through some waters, and through some fires designed to lead them back to the fold, they left. Our Loving and Righteous Father wants to restore them to their right identity as His special, holy, and royal possession and Kingdom of priests unto Himself that were created by Him to show others His goodness. For this, He has made the command for them to be released from the grip of darkness so they can step into His wonderful light (1Peter 2:9).
Isaiah 43:5-6 declares,
““Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east [where they are scattered], And gather you from the west. “I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ And to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’ Bring My sons from far way And My daughters from the ends of the earth,” AMP
Psalm 139:14 also says,
“I will give thanks and praise to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.” AMP (Italics emphases mine).
According to blueletterbible.org, The lexicon of the word “fearful” in the Hebrew H3372 means: to stand in awe of; to fear, reverence, honor, respect; to cause astonishment and awe; to be held in awe; to inspire reverence and godly fear; and morally to revere. Likewise, the lexicon of the word “wonderful“ in the Hebrew H6381 means: to be beyond one’s power; to be extraordinary; to do or accomplish extraordinary, hard, or difficult things.
This means that, just like God is calling these prodigals to walk in their right identity, we will only be able to do the extraordinary, awe-inspiring, difficult but attainable things that God has purposed for us when we surrender our lives to Him and His Lordship/authority over our lives. We need to recognize that we belong to Him and not to ourselves or to the world and surrender with reverence to His authority over us, then will we see His restoration in our lives.
Psalm 100:3 reveals, “Know and fully recognize with gratitude that the Lord Himself is God; It is He who has made us, not we ourselves [and we are His]. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.” AMP
Leviticus 20:26 adds, “You must be holy, for I, the Eternal One, am holy, and I have chosen you from all the people of the world to be My people.” VOICE
Therefore, because of His relentless pursuit of us, 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 tells us, “Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful.” NLT
Our Prince of peace wants to rule our whole being: spirit, soul, and body. We’ve mentioned in other posts that to be “holy” means to be set apart solely for the service of the Lord and not to live for this world and its influence which causes a person to live by the lust (pride) of their flesh and their emotions. This combination of control by our flesh and emotions without the influence of the Spirit of God brings an absence of internal and external peace and can turn us to follow destructive ways (2 Corinthians 6:14).
This is what happened to the prodigal son in the parable at the beginning of this post. A rebellious, lawless spirit began to influence and blind him from his true identity as a son and heir of his Father’s possessions. Everything around him was available to him. However, he was also required to come under the instruction of his father to learn to steward and protect his inheritance the right way. His wrong identity led him to believe that the lavish riches he enjoyed were to be spent aimlessly in the wrong things, in the wrong places, and with the wrong people. In the end, all that produced was a famine in his life.
Many of these prodigals are called and anointed like Jesus to deliver their generation by the power of His Spirit (See Acts 10:38, Isaiah 61:1-4). And Luke 15:17-21 continues to demonstrate the drawing of the Spirit of God that brought this son who had left the fold to desire to return with repentance and self-reflection. His eyes were opened to his right identity and to desire to walk in it. It says,
“So he had this moment of self-reflection: ‘What am I doing here? Back home, my father’s hired servants have plenty of food. Why am I here starving to death? I’ll get up and return to my father, and I’ll say, ‘Father, I have done wrong—wrong against God and against you. I have forfeited any right to be treated like your son, but I’m wondering if you’d treat me as one of your hired servants?’’ So he got up and returned to his father. The father looked off in the distance and saw the young man returning. He felt compassion for his son and ran out to him, enfolded him in an embrace, and kissed him. The son said, ‘Father, I have done a terrible wrong in God’s sight and in your sight too. I have forfeited any right to be treated as your son.’” VOICE
It is such an awesome thing to see that the father expected the safe return of this one son. Nonetheless, He didn’t keep him from leaving when he expressed his desire to leave, nor did he go after him to convince him to return. Instead, he allowed the drawing of the Spirit of God to do what only He could do: open the eyes of the blind, unstop his deaf ears to His voice, and cause him to see that the way he had turned to was, after all, keeping him from his relationship with his loving father, and from what was his all along to guard and protect with clean hands and a pure heart.
Luke 15:22-24 shows us how the father was able to order a celebration for his expectations were materialized—his son had returned to never depart again from the path of righteousness. The Scripture says, “But the father turned to his servants and said, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe we have and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. Go get the fattest calf and butcher it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate because my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and has been found.” So they had this huge party.” VOICE
To God alone be all the glory.*
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