Gifts God Would Love, episode 125

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If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at When You Love a Prodigal.

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And also help and hope for your own life journey.

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So how are you doing with the holidays? Surviving so far?

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If you love a prodigal, I know it can be challenging.

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I find, personally, giving gifts at Christmas, birthdays, or anytime often lifts my spirits.

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And so I work hard at trying to find just the right gifts.

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Speaking of birthdays, we're almost there. The day we celebrate the birthday of our Savior.

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I like to consider, therefore, what Jesus might like for me as a birthday gift.

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And I've thought of several things. As I mentioned, each desirable gift our Lord might like,

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take note of something you might want to give him.

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You can do all of them, but for sure, just, you know, which one really stands out that maybe

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this is what Jesus would love to receive from you as a birthday gift.

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First, my heart. This is the most important one.

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And if I had only one gift to give, this would be it.

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He says his greatest desire is that we would love him with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength.

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And that is, with our whole being, with everything that we are, he desires our heart to be his,

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that we would love him. He desires to be first in our affections, that is, king of our hearts.

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And as I grow to love him like that, then I am ready to give him these other additional gifts.

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But they will often flow out of, I've given my heart to the Lord.

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The next gift for Jesus is my will.

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Actually, this one's pretty hard for me, even still, because growing up,

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my greatest desire was always to have my own way.

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And my family would agree with that, and that I actually usually got my own way.

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But meeting God, I said, I think I choose your way.

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And throughout my walk with him, we've had many conversations about my way or his way.

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I sometimes lobby for my good ideas, but he has convinced me that his way is always better than my way.

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There have been some difficult, very difficult times to give him my will, to choose his way over mine.

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When I was planning to go work on a magazine, I had to choose God's way,

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which was to work with the ministry I'm a part of.

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And then he let me work on a magazine, so he was so kind.

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And then another time where I had to choose his way over mine,

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I was dating this guy, Steve Douglass, for five years.

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And people said, give up on him, give up on him.

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And I said, OK, I'm done. And I said, Lord, I'm done. I can't wait any longer.

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And the Lord said, wait, don't give up. Don't quit.

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He was so worth waiting for.

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Without a doubt, it works best when I surrender willingly.

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So he asked for our will. He also asked for my hands.

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Now, that seems a little funny.

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I always say I don't do hands.

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That is, I don't make things or draw things or build things or fix things.

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I just do words, not hands.

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And so when God asked for my hands, it reminds me of his conversation with Moses

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when Moses said, I can't speak well.

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I can't go to Pharaoh and tell him what you want me to say.

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And God said, what's in your hand, Moses?

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And Moses looked and in his hand was his shepherd's staff.

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And God said, that's what we'll use.

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And sure enough, God did use that shepherd to bring down plagues on the Egyptians,

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to part the Red Sea, to provide water from a rock for the people.

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His response to me, give me your hands, the gifts that I have given you.

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I will amaze you with how I will use you.

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He also asked for my feet.

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Seriously, he wants my feet? He does.

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That is, he wants me to be willing to put my feet in motion,

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to go wherever he asks me to go.

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That might be to a physical place or an opportunity like doing a podcast.

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It might be someplace scary or uncomfortable or to get engaged in a challenging relationship.

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He says, I know you don't know where I'm going to send you, but I know this.

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I know that he has promised to go with me.

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The first words he said to me almost after my husband moved to heaven last year,

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and I said, how am I going to live without him?

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And the Lord said, I will be with you.

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And he has been.

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And so whether it's our prodigal or going someplace scary or just circumstances that happen,

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he says, whatever it is, wherever you go, where I'm taking you, I am with you.

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So he wants our feet.

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Now those gifts are fairly tangible to understand.

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Our heart and our hands and our feet and our will.

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Those are the things that he asks for us.

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But then there are some other things that he would really love to see us giving him.

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These are gifts that have to do with how we relate to him.

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It's more about relationship than just knowing him and letting him work.

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And the first one is trusting.

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He asks us to trust him.

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Jesus talked often of the power of faith, of believing who he is and what he is like.

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He tells us to have faith.

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He asks the disciples, even as he still asks us, where is your faith?

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He says nothing is impossible to those who have faith, who will trust him.

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Author Brennan Manning, in his wonderful book Ruthless Trust, describes trust as faith in action.

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When I put feet to my faith, my belief in Jesus, I entrust myself, my life, my needs, my fears,

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my hopes and dreams, even my prodigal to him.

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Trusting him is saying, I believe that you're God and you're good.

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We're going to talk about that next week.

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So trusting is a gift he would love us to have all the time.

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Another one is obeying.

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In our relationships, we often look for proof of love from others in their actions.

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If you love me, you will.

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And sometimes we don't say that, but it's kind of how we are thinking a lot of times.

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If you love me, you wouldn't do that.

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But if you love me, you will do this.

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And Jesus also looks for action that demonstrates that our love is true.

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He says in John 14, if you love me, you will obey my teaching.

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That's not always easy, but he says his teachings provide the how-tos for life and health and joy

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and meaning and our obedience to what he's teaching, what he's asking of us.

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That obedience says to God, I love you, I trust you.

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And it brings him great joy as well as amazing benefits to us.

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And then he asks us to be loving.

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The greatest commandment we are to obey is to love God with your whole being

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and to love others as you love yourself.

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When our greatest love belongs to Jesus, he is pleased,

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but he desires that our love for him lead to love for others.

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A new command I give you, love one another.

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Love as I have loved you.

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Whoa, whoa, whoa. That's almost impossible.

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Love like Jesus? How did Jesus show us love?

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Oh yeah, he laid down his life. He went to the cross.

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But he asks us to love others like he has loved us,

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to be there for them, to care about them, to be there when they need someone,

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to serve them, to give, to whatever is needed.

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And he promises to go with us.

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The primary way that we lay down our lives in love is by giving time or help

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or money or encouragement.

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Jesus really likes this gift, and we often receive back more than we give.

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And then thanking. Thanking.

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Scripture is pretty clear about this gift.

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In everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

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You've heard me say this before, I know.

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Say thank you in everything? That makes no sense.

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How do you say thank you for tragedies, betrayals, losses, disappointments,

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a lost prodigal, even the smallest pains of life?

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Because God is God and God is good, saying thank you is one more way we express trust in God.

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That he cares about us and will work even terrible things for our good.

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Another gift that gives back.

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God loves as we give, as we surrender, as we say yes, as we give these gifts to him,

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they all give back to us.

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And so it's kind of a selfish thing that we get to do.

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We get to give, but God's going to give to us in return.

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And of course the best gift, the one that makes all the others possible,

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finishes the song, What Can I Give Him? Give him my heart.

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So don't wait till Christmas, which I know is soon.

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Wrap these gifts up right now and offer them to your Father in heaven.

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I have a sweet Christmas gift for you.

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A new playlist I call Music for the Hard Times.

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I think it will be helpful through any hard times that you're experiencing,

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with your prodigal or otherwise.

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And it will encourage you and lift you up, I believe.

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And you can find it in the show notes.

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Just click on it and you can listen to some amazing songs

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that will be just what you want in these hard times.

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So let me summarize. It's Christmas, it's the birthday of Jesus,

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and we get to celebrate him by giving him the gifts

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that will be most meaningful to him.

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Our hearts, our will, one of the hardest.

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Our feet, our hands, just trusting him, believing, trusting him.

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What a gift that is.

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Obeying, that's the next thing that happens.

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Loving him and others and learning to thank in all things.

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So I pray that this Christmas will be so beautiful for you,

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that there will be new connections with your prodigal,

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new ways to show love, new lays that you see this person

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responding to the Lord, and that your relationship with God

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will develop and grow and deepen during this Christmas time,

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especially as you offer him the gifts that will please him so much.

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Thank you, God bless you.