Seeking Transformation, episode 166

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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 the When You Love a Prodigal podcast, and also help and hope for your own life journey.

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Today I am going to share four words that I believe hold a secret to transformation

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in our prodigal's lives, in our families, in our own lives.

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Please remember to jot down any actions that you think you should take.

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In my conversations with those who love a prodigal, or with someone going through hard

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times even, with anyone in an uncertain time, I usually end up at the same place with four

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words that can make a real difference, even bring transformation in a prodigal and in

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our own lives.

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These words are filled with encouragement and hope.

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When I remember them and choose to believe what God says to me about them, I am changed.

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Sometimes my circumstances also change, and oftentimes I see new ways that God is answering

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my prayers.

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Let's just take a brief look at what God has to say about each one.

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I will try to read each one slowly so you can let it sink in for yourself and for your

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prodigal.

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The first word is love.

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Our God lavishes love on us always and forever.

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I'm just going to share some scriptures that talk about God's love for us and for our prodigals.

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The Lord appeared to us in the past saying, I have loved you with an everlasting love.

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I have drawn you with loving kindness.

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What?

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Is that just beautiful?

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Love is from Jeremiah 31, everlasting love and wooing us with his loving kindness.

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Psalm 103, one of my very favorites.

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For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him

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or love him or choose to follow him.

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It's as high as it is from heavens to earth.

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That's how much he loves us.

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And in Romans 5, for God put his love on the line for us by offering his son in a sacrificial

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death while we were of no use whatever to him.

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That's how much he loves us.

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He sent Jesus to die for us.

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I am reading them slowly because I want you to have time to comprehend.

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In 1 John 4, we read, there is no fear in love.

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Perfect love drives out fear.

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And that's what God has, perfect love for us.

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In Romans 8, we read, for I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor

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demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor

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anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is

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in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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Does that just give you great encouragement about God's love for you and for your beloved

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prodigal?

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So keep in mind always God's love.

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I was just interviewing Casey Lewis who was up last time on our previous episode.

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And she as a counselor talked about the importance of love and where do we get the kind of love

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for our loved one who's breaking our hearts or hurting us in many ways.

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We get that kind of love because of the love God has for us and for them.

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And he will give us the love we need even when it's hard to love.

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The second word is mercy.

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Of course you know of things your prodigal has done for which they desire mercy and you

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find it hard to give.

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But the same is true for each of us.

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We've done many things that God should find hard to give us mercy for.

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But because of his great love for us, the Father sent Jesus to take our sins and he

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pours mercy on us over and over and over.

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Famous verses from Lamentations 3.

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The faithful love of the Lord never ends.

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His mercies never cease.

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Great is his faithfulness.

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His mercies begin afresh each morning.

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I love that concept.

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It's not like I have to depend on the mercies from before when I blew it again and the same

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would be true for our prodigals.

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No, he says every morning he has new mercy available to us.

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Nehemiah 9 tells us, but in your great mercy, Lord, you did not put an end to them talking

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about those who had really blown it or abandon them for you are a gracious and merciful God.

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So often we think God's angry and out to get us or at least punish us, which we deserve.

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But no, you are a gracious and merciful God.

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Micah 7 tells us who is a God like you who pardons sin and forgives the transgression

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of the remnant of his inheritance.

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All the people, the Israelis who blew it over and over, he forgives.

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You do not stay angry forever, but delight to show mercy.

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I think sometimes when we do give mercy to our loved ones because of something they've

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done, it's a little begrudgingly because we're still angry and so we don't really want to.

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But you, Lord, delight to show mercy.

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You also give your people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their

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sins.

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It's what mercy is about is forgiveness.

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Because of the tender mercy of our God by which the rising sun will come to us from

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heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet

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into the path of peace.

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I hope you're enjoying hearing these beautiful expressions of God's love and mercy and desire

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to do good to us.

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Ephesians 2 tells us, all of us lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings

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of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.

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Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.

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But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ

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even when we were dead in transgressions.

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It is by grace you have been saved.

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I love it.

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Because of his great love, he has made us alive even in our sins because of his mercy.

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Here's a verse you might not have ever really heard.

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James 2-3 says, mercy triumphs over judgment.

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Now that raises a lot of questions and I don't have all the answers, but it sure does give

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me hope.

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And then in Hebrews chapter 4, let us then approach God's throne of grace.

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I love the concept of a throne of grace.

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It's like the throne God's sitting on is made of grace.

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We approach his throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace

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to help us in our time of need.

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So you've heard me talk about his love.

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So so overflowing, overwhelming, overpowering.

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He loves us no matter what.

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And then his mercy, he loves to forgive.

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He loves to show mercy.

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And then it says there at the end of the Hebrews passage, and find grace to help us in our

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time of need.

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And that's the next word I want to mention is grace.

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I have a granddaughter named Grace.

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She has four brothers.

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And I thought, boy, God put that name on her because she's going to help those four boys

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have more grace.

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And then as I watched her and how strong willed she was and opinionated, I thought, no, maybe

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she's the one who needs the grace.

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But it's available.

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It brings us to God's partner in mercy, which is grace.

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They go together.

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As we live in his love, rescued by his mercy, we can walk day by day and moment by moment

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in his generous gift of grace.

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In Romans 5, we learn, but the gift is not like the trespass or the things we've done

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wrong.

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For if the many died by the trespass of one man, Adam, too bad.

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How much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus

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Christ, overflow to the many?

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One person sinned, paid, we've all had that penalty to pay, but God's grace is so great.

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It's a gift and it comes because of Jesus and his death on the cross.

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And in Romans 5, we can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we

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can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice.

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God put his life on the line for us by offering his son in sacrificial death while we were

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of no use whatever to him.

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We didn't deserve it.

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We didn't provide anything except that God loves us and he has mercy on us and that causes

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him to have grace for us.

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And Thessalonians 2, may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our father who loved us and

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by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope.

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So will that encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

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Do you like the gifts that come with grace, eternal encouragement, good hope, encouraging

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our hearts and strengthening us to do the good deeds that we would like to do?

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Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, probably you've heard this, for it is by grace you have been saved

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through faith and this is not of yourself.

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It is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast.

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You can't earn it.

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You can't make it yourself.

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God's given you grace and God is able to make all grace abound to you so that in all things,

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at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

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So he's saying in order for you to do the good works for which I've created you, I'm

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giving you all the grace you need, all the time that you need it, everything.

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You have grace for the good works that I have for you to do.

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My grace, we learned in 2 Corinthians 12, is sufficient for you for my power is made

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perfect in weakness.

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When we think we're too weak to live as we should and we're certainly too weak to know

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how to guide our prodigals well, he says there's grace for that.

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My grace is more than enough for whatever you need.

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Then let us approach God's throne of grace.

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I know I read this under the previous section, but I just love this concept.

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Let us approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and

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find grace.

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Confidence, we can have confidence to come to God who's sitting on a throne of grace

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and he will receive us.

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So as I began to comprehend the unfathomable love of God, I recognized that his love prompted

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his mercy to forgive all my sin.

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Then he gives even more.

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He forgives, but then he gives us amazing grace, all sufficient grace, endless grace

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to take us through every part of our journeys, every part being the good things that we love

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and the hard things that we experience and some of the bad choices that we make.

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But there's one more word I want to mention.

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We've talked about what?

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We've talked about love and mercy and grace.

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He's given everything we need and for us to give to others, including our prodigals.

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And here is that other word.

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The word is blessing.

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Now I don't know about you, but sometimes I found it challenging to bless my prodigal

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who has caused me lots of pain, done things that I'm really not happy about, is continuing

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to make not great.

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Well, actually he's making mostly, but I'm sure you have prodigals that still are causing

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a lot of pain for you.

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Blessing.

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Here's a story of blessing.

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Now if you've been listening to my podcast for a long time, you might've heard this story

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because it's one of my favorites.

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Here we go.

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Once again, our prodigal had aggravated me.

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That's probably an inadequate word.

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My natural reaction was to raise my voice and assign a consequence.

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Instead, as he stormed out of the house, I went to his room, gathered his scattered dirty

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clothes and headed to the laundry room.

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Doing his laundry was his job, not mine.

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But today it was mine.

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And as I threw each shirt and shorts into the washer, I said, my son, Josh, I bless

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you.

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I don't know if he felt blessed or if he even remembered or recognized that I had done it

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for him.

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But it did wonders for me in my anger to choose blessing instead of harsh words, condemnation,

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harsh penalties.

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Why did I do that?

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Because God has convinced me of the power of blessing and the challenge to live it out.

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He tells us, do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult.

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On the contrary, you ready?

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Repay evil with blessing because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.

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He says, you're called even in the hardest thing to bless instead of to curse or to be

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angry.

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So what really is blessing?

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What does it mean to bless?

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Let me help you with some definition here.

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Blessing is the projection of good into another's life.

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That comes from Dallas Willard, a great teacher and author.

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Or it means to bring God into the situation.

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To bless is to offer prayer to God for someone's welfare and benefit.

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What a wonderful thing to ask good to happen in another's life, even if they have just

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done something to be hurtful to you.

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Given the realities of family stress with financial needs, racial tensions, fires and

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hurricanes and many other challenges in our lives today, I imagine there is a great need

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of blessing in word and deed in our homes.

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Think about that.

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The world, our lives are full of stress and hard things.

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And even in the middle of that, rather than let our anger and our frustration take hurtful

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words, give hurtful words, that we would instead choose blessing.

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The call to bless extends well beyond our families, to neighbors, to coworkers, to those

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with different political views, to those with divergent cultural and racial attitudes and

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opinions.

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God says, bless, don't curse.

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When speaking your thoughts, expressing your feelings, describing the reality of your experience

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as God's children, we speak in love, not animosity, with blessing, not cursing.

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And it goes one step further.

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Jesus himself admonishes us.

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But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

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That's Matthew 5.

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Paul affirms this in Romans 12.

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Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

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Seriously?

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Really?

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Bless my enemies, people who have harmed me or demeaned me or even destroyed my life and

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the people I love.

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And even my prodigal who has caused so much hurt.

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Bless.

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Bless.

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Bless.

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The power of blessing.

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We know that hate multiplies hate, but blessing multiplies blessing and comes back to us.

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So not only do we cause good for people or our prodigal, but we get blessed as a result

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of our blessing others.

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I'm convinced that we need to extend blessing to our loved wanderers, but also those we

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disagree with, to our nation, to the nations of the world.

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So this is not just for our family and our prodigals, but it's for anybody in our lives,

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whether they're neighbors we know or the people out there making decisions that we don't like.

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And what is our response to be?

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To be on our knees repenting.

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If my people who are called by name, who humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn

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from their wicked ways, then I will hear them from heaven and will forgive their sin and

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will heal their land.

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What if all of those of us and others who are vilifying each other, filling social media

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with anger and accusations, were to speak words of blessing instead of cursing?

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What if media outlets would seek to bring together rather than stir up strife?

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What if we were to bless?

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And my response to bless those I live with are prodigals that break our hearts and also

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people near and the ones we encounter with hopeful words, with encouraging eyes above

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my mask when I'm trying to have a face that's nice but doesn't really feel nice.

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No, we can offer a listening ear and we can help to meet real needs.

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And looking for ways to do these things is usually beyond my immediate capacity.

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And surely allowing the love, mercy, grace, and blessing from our God to flow through

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us to our loved ones who have and continue to break our hearts can bring transformation

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in their lives and ours.

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Most of all, I will choose to bless on my knees, praying for our loving God to do His

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good for them, whether it's our child who's hurt us or other family members who have been

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spiteful or it's our neighbor who made a mess in our yard or it's those online and every

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place you turn your face who makes you angry.

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To bless them, to bless them, to send the blessings that God would like to give them

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and we're the channel of that blessing.

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We can't do it on our own, but God will do it through us as we allow His love and His

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mercy and His grace to flow through us, there will be blessing that comes to us and then

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goes through us to our loved ones and to anyone else around us that we need to bless as well.

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So what about you?

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Which of these words encourages you the most?

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Is God saying, my love is available to flow through you?

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Is He saying, I'm going to forgive you no matter what?

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Is He saying, there's grace to enable you to make those right choices, to choose the

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right way to talk to your loved one, to bring change in their hearts, to help them to believe

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that they are valued and loved and cared for?

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And then God says, you can bless, but know this, you will be blessed.

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The more you bless others, the more you will be blessed because my blessing comes back

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on you and flows through you to others.

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So may you experience today, this next week, God's love in new and powerful ways.

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And may you, even as you make bad choices, know that you have been given mercy and may

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that enable you to give mercy to your loved one.

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And then that there's grace because it's not going to be easy overnight, but God gives

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grace for everything that you need.

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And then to take a tangible positive step and bless, whether you're praying the blessing

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or doing something that blesses them, like doing their laundry, or just speaking words

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of blessing instead of words of anger and resentment.

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And then see how God will flow that blessing into you and through you.

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God bless you.