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

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That's a pretty big deal, all you need, because He is Jehovah Jireh, and He provides all we 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 gifts He gives us,

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to just ask Jesus, which will be most helpful to you as you travel through the wilderness with your prodigal?

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Jot 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 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,

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but 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,

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and He says, prepare your 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 big church called the Church of the Incarnation,

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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,

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and what an amazing thing that God would put Himself into that position, dependent, weak, needing others to care for Him.

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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 the glory, all that Jesus brings and represents.

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But He says He came to be like us so that 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 of them,

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and you look at that little baby Jesus, it's not just, you know, I have a carved wooden one, actually several of those,

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and I have some plastic ones and some plaster ones and ceramics,

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

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because it's a dark 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 world.

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And in His 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. We can follow the path that He has for us.

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He shows us the way to go. He's like a flashlight on our path,

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but He also illumines light to see where we go and 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. He leads us in valleys and on mountains.

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He protects us from evil. He provides all needs.

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

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And yeah, they weren't real smart. 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,

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to lead them, to show them how to live and where to go.

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Even I think they eat pretty naturally.

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But my very favorite picture is pictures of the shepherd rescuing sheep

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that have fallen down in a canyon or something like that, and I've had several of those.

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But my really very favorite picture is I have a picture of our son, Josh,

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holding a newborn lamb in a tender, gentle way.

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And 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, and 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

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

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And so he says, I'll take care of you. I'll show you where to go.

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I'll lead you to green pastures, to quiet streams. 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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So during COVID, one of the things that happened in many homes is that people who are stuck at home

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started looking for things to do that meant something, and baking became one of the most popular things.

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And so everyone's making different kinds of breads and rolls and cakes and pies.

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And Jesus said, that's a good thing. You bake. You make bread.

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Because I've taught you that I'm the bread of life and will satisfy your every hunger.

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

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when we put it in the context of our everyday life, to understand that's why he's a light and that's why he's 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 whole livelihood

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because there's no water.

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

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to bring water up in a well, to provide clean water, to cook, to clean, and to feed animals and to take care of crops.

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It's essential for life that we have water.

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

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And he will fill us up with what we need for ourselves.

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But he's looking to do that for our prodigals as well.

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

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The seventh, I 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 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 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 kind of get used to the word no, because you are saying no to things they want to do.

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And when you ask them questions, they're saying no, 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, you know, 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 he can.

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And 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 find they believe that we care,

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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 a few hurricanes in my life,

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and just plain rainstorms, drenching rain pouring down, 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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And in Texas, well, they have a lot of tornadoes.

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So, you know, there are storms everywhere, and so all of us have probably experienced some kind of serious, frightening,

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out-of-control, our control storm.

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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.

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And there comes Jesus walking on water, saying, Peace be still, subduing the storms of our lives

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and raising us up so we don't drown and we don't go under.

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

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And think about your prodigal in a bad place, a scary place, and Jesus is there and grabbing hold of them.

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Nine, you know, many prodigals have been adopted.

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And a lot of their prodigalness can come out 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 your wanderers

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into the family of God.

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I am a child of God.

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I've been adopted.

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And that gives me a new identity.

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And that's what God's wooing our prodigals to himself, to help them understand that they can belong

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to the family of God and get a whole new identity.

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Ten, Jesus comes as a Redeemer, able and willing to purchase our freedom and forgiveness by his blood.

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So we can be assured that we are forgiven.

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And he gives us the supernatural ability to 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.

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And he enables us to do that.

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Eleven, do you feel trapped?

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Never 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 fears

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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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Twelfth one, have you grown weary caring about and for your loved ones?

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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 to happen.

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And 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, serving us.

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And 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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And so sometimes the care of our prodigals will call us to a harder place of serving

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that we really 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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Ours 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 pay attorney's fees or

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get sued?

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Lots of things could happen.

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And 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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Mine 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.

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And we can pray right along with him as he's on 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 of

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their choices, to discern what they are doing to themselves, and to recognize their true

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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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But he's also going to be working on them.

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And he might bring somebody into their life who helps to open their eyes.

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Or when my son was almost killed in an accident and yeah, long story of course, but the car

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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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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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And 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 Rapha, our healer.

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And 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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But 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.

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And that's certainly true for our prodigals.

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He heals our emotions.

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He heals our pasts.

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And he heals our relationships.

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And 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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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 don't.

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And 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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And also, I'm not remembering the second thing, but then the lost sheep and the shepherd

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leaves the 99 and goes and climbs down the canyon wall, kind of, to rescue that lost sheep.

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Jesus rescued us, too.

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And so when Jesus says that he comes seeking the lost, he's demonstrated that by what?

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

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And again, he can help us look at our prodigals with new eyes, with his eyes, and see even as he was seeking

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the lost for all these decades, all these centuries, actually since he started, created the world,

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he's seeking our loved ones as well.

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And 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 forever.

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And 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 who believe.

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And he gives us abundant life today on this earth, as well as the eternal life that he's beckoning us to.

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He says he is not willing for any to perish.

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We're almost done, 19. Jesus comes as Messiah, Savior, Emmanuel, which means God with us,

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saving us from sin 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, he humbly awaits his crowning, not with a physical crown,

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but in our hearts, and says, 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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So as we draw near to the birthday of our Savior, may we recognize that he comes to us in the place of our deepest need.

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And 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 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, Emmanuel.

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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.

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And he died for us.

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And gratefully he rose again.

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Advent is truly just the beginning.

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And we only truly experience Christmas when we receive 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 received because Jesus came

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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 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 and to die for us,

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to know and understand the pain we experience, the deep challenges from our prodigals,

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to bring freedom, forgiveness, healing, hope, abundant life.

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Open our eyes 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 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,

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and all the previous episodes 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.

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And they will be helpful to you, especially as you walk with a prodigal.

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