Advent: Jesus Comes with Valuable Gifts for Your Prodigal Journey (episode 45)

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If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right

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here at When You Love a Prodigal and also help and hope for your own life journey.

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Today you will discover how Jesus will provide all you need in this prodigal journey.

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It's a pretty big deal, all you need because he is Jehovah Jireh and he provides all we

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need.

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I'd like as you're listening to my sharing some of the ways Jesus comes to us and the

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gifts he gives us to just ask Jesus which will be most helpful to you as you travel

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through the wilderness with your prodigal.

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Put it down so you don't forget and talk with God about it and see what he says.

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During the season of Advent, we remember why Jesus came.

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A time that has been special to me as each day the past few years I've been very intentional

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about reflecting on who and what and why Jesus came to earth.

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I have identified 28 treasures that Advent brings to us with the coming of Jesus, but

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I'm only going to briefly mention 20 of them, but I thought 28 might overwhelm you.

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There are more than that though.

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So here we go.

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One, we at Advent time are recognizing that our King is coming and he says, prepare your

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hearts for the arrival of King Jesus by humbling ourselves before him, expressing our needs.

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He desires to meet those needs.

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Second, try to comprehend what incarnation means.

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I think I did not know what incarnation meant really.

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I knew that it was part of the Christmas story and in Dallas where I grew up, there was a

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big church called the Church of the Incarnation and I thought that was an unusual name.

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But then I learned what incarnation really means.

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It meant that Jesus became like us.

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He became an actual human.

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More than that, he came as a baby.

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He was willing to experience the entire human experience and what an amazing thing that

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God would put himself into that position, dependent, weak, needing others to care for

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him, but he became like us so that we could become like him.

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Now that's a pretty impossible thing to imagine as well.

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We are so far from the perfection and the love and the compassion and the power and

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the glory, all that Jesus brings and represents, but he says, he came to be like us so that

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we had the possibility, the opportunity, the privilege to become like him.

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So when you look at one of those nativity scenes and I have about, I don't know, 40

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of them, and you look at that little baby Jesus, it's not just, you know, I have a

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carved wooden one, actually several of those, and I have some plastic ones and some plaster

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ones and ceramics and, but they're just something we made to remind us that that Jesus came

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to be like us so we could become like him.

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Three, do you find your wilderness journey to be kind of a scary place?

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Yeah, it could be scary, especially for me, Friday nights were scary because it's a dark

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time when you don't know what's going to happen.

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I do not like darkness very much, and I'm grateful that Jesus came as the light of the

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world and in this coming, he says, he's scattering the darkness.

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There was darkness in the beginning and God made light and that light is Jesus.

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He shines so brightly and therefore we can see.

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We don't stumble.

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We can follow the path that he has for us.

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He shows us the way to go.

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He's like a flashlight on our path, but he also illumines light to see where we go and

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light to understand who he is and what he's like.

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He is the light of the world.

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Jesus also comes as a good shepherd.

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He leads us in valleys and on mountains.

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He protects us from evil.

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He provides all needs.

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Our son is part-time farmer and for a little while they tried to raise sheep.

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Yeah, they weren't real smart.

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That's what I always hear.

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They don't know what they're doing and they need a shepherd to guide them, to lead them,

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to show them how to live and where to go.

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I think they eat pretty naturally.

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My very favorite picture is pictures of the shepherd rescuing sheep that have fallen down

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in a canyon or something like that.

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I've had several of those, but my really very favorite picture is I have a picture of our

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son Josh holding a newborn lamb in a tender, gentle way.

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The contrast to that person and what he used to be, trying to always be the tough guy,

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has just been a really beautiful.

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I like that picture a lot.

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That shepherd comes to rescue us because we're not really wise enough a lot of times to

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make the right decisions or to end up in places that are good for us like our prodigals do.

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He says, I'll take care of you.

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I'll show you where to go.

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I'll lead you to green pastures, to quiet streams.

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I'll provide everything that you need.

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Jesus also, the fifth one, comes as the bread of life.

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He sustains, he provides, he gives meaning and purpose.

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He satisfies our deepest hungers.

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During COVID, one of the things that happened in many homes is that people who are stuck

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at home started looking for things to do that meant something.

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Baking became one of the most popular things.

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Humans making different kinds of breads and rolls and cakes and pies.

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Jesus said, that's a good thing.

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You bake, you make bread because I've taught you that I'm the bread of life and will satisfy

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your every hunger.

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I think it's good when we're understanding what Jesus is coming as, is when we put it

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in the context of our everyday life to understand that's why he's a light and that's why he's

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the bread.

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Living in prodigal wilderness creates great thirst in us, hunger and thirst.

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And Jesus comes as living water.

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The water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

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I'm sure that in many places in the world right now where drought is eating up their

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whole livelihood because there's no water.

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One of the things that people of God and others are doing is digging deep to find water, to

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bring water up in a well, to provide clean water, to cook, to clean and to feed animals

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and to take care of crops.

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It's essential for life that we have water.

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Jesus says, yeah, it's essential for your life to have the living water of Christ living

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in you.

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He will fill us up with what we need for ourselves, but he's looking to do that for our prodigals

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as well.

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He's saying, come, come, have a drink of water.

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The seventh, like this, Jesus comes as the yes, amen or amen, however you might say it,

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to all the promises of Scripture.

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All those promises that you have claimed as you read the Word of God for yourself and

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for your loved one, Jesus says yes.

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Now, what I said before is true.

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The answers that he has will probably look different than what you had in mind.

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He's more creative, he knows more, and sometimes he changes the answer from what exactly we

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ask for to something better.

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But he's our Savior, and he's faithful, and he's trustworthy, and he loves the word yes.

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Now, when you have a prodigal, you get used to the word no, because you are saying no

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to things they want to do.

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When you ask them questions, they're saying no.

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They didn't do that, or no, they won't do that.

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They'll just do what you're saying when probably they're not telling the truth.

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But God says, I love yes, and he seeks to say yes to us as much as you can.

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He asks us to learn to say yes in ways that encourage and lift up and draw in our prodigals.

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I know we can't say yes to everything, but maybe if we said yes more often, we would

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find they believe that we care, and we're not just trying to control them.

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Jesus loves the word yes.

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Eighth, so does your life feel like a never-ending storm?

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Depending on where you live, you've had storms.

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I'm grateful that I've never lived where we had blizzards, but I've been through quite

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a few hurricanes in my life, and just playing rainstorms, drenching rain, pouring down,

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and oh yeah, earthquakes.

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They're another kind of storm.

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I lived in California a long time, too.

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In Texas, well, they have a lot of tornadoes.

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They're storms everywhere.

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All of us have probably experienced some kind of serious frightening out of control, our

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control storm, and that's how it feels when you love a prodigal a lot of times.

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It's like life is a storm.

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You think this is never-ending.

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I think I'm going to drown, and there comes Jesus walking on water, saying, peace be still,

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thanks of doing the storms of our lives and raising us up so we don't drown and we don't

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go under.

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Next time you're in a storm, think about Jesus coming to you and grabbing hold of you, and

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think about your prodigal in a bad place, a scary place, and Jesus is there and grabbing

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hold of them.

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Nine, many prodigals have been adopted, and a lot of their prodigal-ness can come out

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of pain and loss and confusion and identity issues.

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Who am I?

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And that's been our story with our son.

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Jesus says he comes as the firstborn of God, making possible my adoption and yours and

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your wanderers into the family of God.

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I am a child of God.

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I've been adopted, and that gives me a new identity, and that's what God's wooing our

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prodigals to himself to help them understand that they can belong to the family of God

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and get a whole new identity.

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10, Jesus comes as a redeemer, able and willing to purchase our freedom and forgiveness by

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his blood.

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So we can be assured that we are forgiven, and he gives us the supernatural ability to

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forgive all the pain our loved one has caused us.

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He not only forgives us, but he then gives us what we need to be able to forgive as well.

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And I know you know that when you love a prodigal, there's lots to be forgiven, and he enables

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us to do that.

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11, do you feel trapped?

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Over-free from the burden of the care and concern of your prodigal.

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Jesus comes to set us free from any slavery, slavery to sin, to selfishness, or to our

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fears and our insecurities and our overwhelming sense of we have no hope because of our prodigal.

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He says, no, I'm going to set you free.

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12th one, have you grown weary, caring about, and for your loved one?

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When they're living with you, it can be challenging because it's right in your face all the time.

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But when they're not living with you, it's a different thing.

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It's a fear that you don't know where they are and what's happening and what's going

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to happen.

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Sometimes we feel like we give up.

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We don't see anything else we can do.

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Jesus comes as a servant, washing our very filthy feet, forgiving us.

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Then he says this really challenging thing.

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He says, you're to serve others as I have served you.

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Sometimes the care of our prodigals will call us to a harder place of serving that we really

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don't want to do.

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But Jesus says, I've done it and I can give you what you need to do it.

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Your prodigal may be truly poor and even destitute.

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Our certainly has been.

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Jesus says he comes bringing good news to the poor, inviting them to his banquet and

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promising them the kingdom of God.

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So as poor as you may be and for some of us, our prodigal has contributed greatly to that.

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How many times do you pay for rehab or get them out of jail or play attorney's fees or

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get sued?

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Lots of things could happen.

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He says, but they'll be invited to my banquet.

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I want them in the kingdom of God.

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We're at 14 here.

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We're getting close.

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Is your prodigal in jail or prison?

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A mind has been in jail and juvenile detention.

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Is he enslaved to drugs and or alcohol?

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Ours has been.

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Jesus says he's coming bringing freedom and hope to prisoners and the oppressed or the

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controlled by those substances that they're using.

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He says, I'm going to set them free and we can pray right along with them as he's on

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that journey to set them free.

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How many times have you asked God to open your prodigal's eyes to see the stupidity

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of their choices to discern what they are doing to themselves and to recognize their

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true needs?

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Jesus comes giving sight to the blind.

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He says he will open our physical eyes, but more importantly opens our spiritual eyes

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and he does it for us.

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Sometimes that means he's going to open our eyes to look at our prodigal in a new way,

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in a way that he's looking at them.

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He's also going to be working on them.

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He might bring somebody into their life who helps to open their eyes or when my son was

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almost killed in an accident.

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It's a long story, of course, but the car caught on fire.

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It was a truck.

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It was a wake-up call for him that he needed to make better decisions about what he was

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doing.

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God, Jesus says, I come giving sight to the blind.

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We see it throughout the New Testament, how he healed the blindness of many people.

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He says, I'll do that for your prodigal.

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I will give them new eyes to see the realities of life.

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The 16th one, I have a friend who always prayed that God would heal her loved one in every

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way that she needed healing.

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That's what Jesus does.

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He comes healing.

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He is Jehovah Rafa, our healer.

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What does he heal?

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Well, he heals our bodies.

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I know he doesn't always.

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It happens later when they make it to heaven.

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He heals our hearts.

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He can heal broken hearts.

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He heals our minds where we just think wrongly about things, and that's certainly true for

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our prodigals.

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He heals our emotions.

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He heals our pasts.

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He heals our relationships.

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He can do that for our relationship with our prodigals.

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He is eager to do that for our wayward children, our wayward family members, our wayward friends,

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who he wants to bring total healing.

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Jesus says that he comes seeking the lost, those who know they are lost and those who

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don't.

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Chapter 15 of Luke is a beautiful picture of a lost coin and a woman who got her family

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and friends to help her search for this important valuable coin.

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Also, I'm not remembering the second thing, but then the lost sheep and the shepherd leaves

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the 99 and goes and climbs down the canyon wall to rescue that lost sheep.

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Jesus rescued us too.

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When Jesus says that he comes seeking the lost, he's demonstrated that by what?

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By coming to earth and becoming a human being, to be like us and then dying for us.

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Again, he can help us look at our prodigals with new eyes, with his eyes, and see even

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as he was seeking the lost for all these decades, all these centuries, actually since he started,

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created the world.

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He's seeking our loved ones as well.

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He wants often to do it through us.

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Jesus comes as the resurrection and the life, triumphing over death and the grave now and

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forever.

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He says he raises us up with him.

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He offers us eternal life to live with the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and all of us

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who believe.

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He gives us abundant life today on this earth as well as the eternal life that he's beckoning

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us to.

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He says he is not willing for any to perish.

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We're almost done.

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Jesus comes as Messiah, Savior, Emmanuel, which means God with us, saving us from sin

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and from ourselves, reconciling us to God.

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He is God with us, promising, desiring to be with us all the time.

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He is living with us and is in us so that on Christmas Day, we can shout hallelujah.

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The King has come.

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He humbly, because Jesus came ever so humbly.

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He humbly awaits his crowning, not with a physical crown, but in our hearts and says,

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make him daily King of our lives.

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That's what happens in Advent and a few other things that you didn't know.

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It had so much to offer us.

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What incredible Christmas gifts we receive when we wait and welcome the Savior, Jesus.

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As we draw near to the birthday of our Savior, may we recognize that He comes to us in the

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place of our deepest need.

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If I really stop to think about Christmas and what it means, I am so in awe of our God.

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He loved me and you and your prodigal so much He was willing to be incarnate, to become

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a human being.

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He so desired to be with us, you and me, our prodigals, that He named His son, Jesus,

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Emmanuel, God with us.

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Jesus lived among us.

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He healed.

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He taught.

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He modeled love and compassion and He died for us and, gratefully, He rose again.

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Advent is truly just the beginning and we only truly experience Christmas when we receive

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His gift to us and we crown Him as King in our hearts.

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I hope you jotted down a few of these wonderful gifts or even just one that we receive because

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Jesus came that was especially meaningful or helpful to you.

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Pick one to start with.

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Ask God to show you how Jesus is providing for you and your loved one with that special

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gift that Jesus has given.

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Maybe it's living water and maybe it's freedom and maybe it's rest.

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Let me pray for you, for all of us.

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Father, thank you for sending your son, Jesus, to become like us, to live on earth, to suffer

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and to die for us, to know and understand the pain we experience, the deep challenges

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from our prodigals, to bring freedom, forgiveness, healing, hope, abundant life, open our eyes

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to see the gifts Jesus has given us.

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May each of us receive those gifts with joy and gratitude as we see you do a beautiful

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work in us and in those we love.

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In Jesus' name.

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Next week, we're taking a break so I can have some time with our family.

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I'm going to Bozeman, Montana for Christmas with my five grandchildren and their parents.

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Of course, if you really need some encouragement over the holidays and all the previous episodes

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of our podcast are available to you.

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We will have a great new episode to kick off the new year.

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It's called My Top 10 Life Lessons airing on January 4th and they will be helpful to

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you, especially as you walk with a prodigal.

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May you have a joyful celebration of the birth of Jesus.