The Power of Grace, episode 155

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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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As you listen, make a note of anything you hear God whispering to you.

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I know if I don't write it down, I always forget, so maybe that's true for you as well.

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In all my years of loving a prodigal and seeking to help others love their prodigal well, one

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word has been the key difference.

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It has made all the difference.

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It's the change agent, and that word is grace.

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Early in my journey with my prodigal, God gave me a guiding word.

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He said, when you make mistakes with this boy, and you will, and I did, make them on

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the side of grace.

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If I had a theme verse, it would be from Hebrews 4.16.

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It says, let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive

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mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

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I just love that.

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I've said it to myself, and I've quoted it many times.

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He says, come on up, come up to the throne of grace.

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Be sure that you're welcome here, and you're going to get mercy, and you're going to find

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all the grace you need in your time of need.

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As we know, when you have a prodigal, it's a time of need.

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Let me try to convey the meaning and magnitude of this word as it reveals God and his involvement

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in our lives and the lives of those we are praying for.

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We are blessed as we come to him, for our need is great.

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It's deep, and for most of us, it's ongoing.

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It's a long journey.

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Thus we have a means to discover the reality of God's grace in the intense crucible and

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classroom of our lives with our prodigals.

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So what is grace?

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In the dictionary, it is defined with words such as favor, goodwill, kindness, forgiveness,

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charity, love, mercy, clemency, pardon, leniency, reprieve, and sometimes seeing the anonyms

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also helps us understand the meaning, animosity, enmity, disfavor, harshness, disrespect, dishonor.

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And so you see it's a very positive word, not a negative word at all.

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And we gain much greater insight into God's definition of grace from the Greek lexicon.

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The Greek word for grace is keras, which has the same root as words for joy, thanks, and

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gift.

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And here are some other definitions and descriptions that are in the Greek.

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That which affords us joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, and loveliness.

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When you talk about grace in your speech, it would mean words like goodwill and loving

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kindness.

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It would talk about the favor of merciful kindness by which God, exerting His holy influence

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upon souls, turns them to Christ, strengthens them, increases them in faith, knowledge,

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affection, and kindles them to the exercise of Christian virtues.

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So what does it mean to live in grace?

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It's a spiritual condition living in grace is of one governed by the power of divine,

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heavenly spiritual grace.

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And there are many gifts of grace.

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All bounty, recompense, reward, resulting in thanks and gratitude.

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So are you getting a picture about what this word is?

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And when you mean it's from God, you begin to understand that all of those even non-spiritual

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definitions, when you see that it's coming from God, you begin to understand how great

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this gift He has given us.

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That power there is in it to how we live our lives.

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He tells us there are gifts the scripture has bestowed on us by the grace of God, delivered

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by the Lord Jesus, and continually poured out on us and in us by the Holy Spirit who

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lives in us when we know Christ.

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He provides sufficiency for every need.

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Whatever I need, He's got it.

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There's grace for it.

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Redemption, incomparable riches, encouragement, strength, growth.

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Okay, do you get the picture?

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Grace is a gift of overflowing abundance.

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So as we find ourselves on our knees or on our faces, I was many times on behalf of our

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own protocols and many others.

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May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be poured out on us and through us abundantly.

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May the grace be evident in what we say and how we respond to the things our protocol

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does.

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We tend to get angry or frustrated or really unhappy, but God says that we're to be

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the channels of His grace.

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He gives it to us so that He can then give it to our loved ones through us.

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So I want to take a look at grace in action.

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And this is a prodigal story, but you know it, but I want to help us see the grace in

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it.

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It's called the story of the prodigal son, but most of us have learned that it's really

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about two prodigal sons, the younger and the elder, but it's really about the graceful

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father.

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It is found in Luke chapter 15.

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So I'm going to give you a little synopsis and then some personalization and application.

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So there is the younger son.

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Here's what he did.

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He shamed his father by asking for his inheritance, which is equal to wishing that his father

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were dead because in order to get his inheritance, his father would need to be dead, but instead

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he's just asking for it.

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And the father, yes, we'll find out about it in a minute, but what he did, the son

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took a significant portion of his father's livelihood.

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He and also stocked the livelihood of a farmer and a person who was raising livestock.

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And then he went and lived a life of extravagant sin, which is the real meaning of prodigal.

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He squandered all of his inheritance with wild living.

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And then he'd despaired.

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He got hungry.

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He didn't like living with pigs.

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He repented and he decided to return.

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He said, I'm going to go back to my father and see if he'll take me back as one of his

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hired hands because I am unworthy to be his son.

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And here's what the father did.

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Well, he let him go and he let him have his portion.

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What?

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What generosity?

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And then he watched and he waited and I'm sure he was praying and he saw him coming back.

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We don't know if it's months or years later and he sees him in the distance, which tells

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me he's been watching for him all the time.

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And he ran to his son and he embraced him and he kissed him and the son's trying to

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say, I'm unworthy, please forgive me, please let me come be a servant in your home, in

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your household.

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But the father, no, he couldn't do it.

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He just loved him.

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It says he put his robe on him and he put shoes on his feet because he didn't have any

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anymore and he hugged him and kissed him and he says, we have to celebrate.

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And he threw a party for him and reinstated him in the family.

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He didn't take him up on his humble offer to just be a servant.

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He says, no, you were part of my family.

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Does this make sense?

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Was the father crazy?

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Did the son deserve such grace?

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No, of course he did not deserve it.

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Now let's pause a minute and I think, what have I done?

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I could make a long list of my sins, the usual ones, generally not very many big ones.

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I have sought to follow Christ to obey him, live and love like Jesus.

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But too often I have failed and especially with my prodigal, I have failed many times.

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I have disobeyed or shamed or dishonored.

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I have abandoned God's power and grace to me in order to tell my son what I thought

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of him and the choices that he had made and how unkind he was to us in return for the

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kindness we had given him.

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I misused my Heavenly Father and his generous gifts of grace.

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So what did my Heavenly Father do?

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Well, let's see what all he's done.

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He created me in his image for definite purposes.

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That's true for you too.

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He pursued me.

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He purchased me.

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He redeemed me.

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He reconciled me.

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He's forgiven me.

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All true for you if you have Jesus in your life.

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He adopted me as his very own loved daughter.

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He invited me into his presence up to his throne of grace.

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He talked with me.

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He enjoyed being with me.

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And he welcomed me back over and over of my own sins or my sins toward my prodigal.

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He extended amazing grace to me.

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Does this make sense?

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No.

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Do I deserve such grace?

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Not at all.

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And here's some of the things that my prodigal has done.

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He has done many prodigal things.

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He's lied, stolen, disrespected us, used and abused alcohol, drugs, girls, our home.

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He went through 17 cars in five years.

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He spent time at juvenile detention and a night in jail one time.

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I'll stop there.

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Those cover most of the big things.

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There were plenty of small things, especially in the area of disrespect.

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And here are the things that I did in response.

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I established boundaries.

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I enforced consequences.

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My husband and I helped him to move out when he consistently chose not to respect us in

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our home.

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I got counseling for him and for myself and for us as a family.

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I sought advice.

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I listened.

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I pleaded with him.

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I preached to him.

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I bailed him out of jail once.

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I have paid for more than I should have.

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I have prayed and prayed and prayed.

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I have welcomed him back, encouraged him, homeschooled him, promoted his work efforts

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so he could earn some money.

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I have mostly lobbed and increasingly extended grace.

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I have done some things well, other things not well at all.

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Does he deserve the grace given over and over?

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No.

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But was I right to keep giving grace?

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I think so.

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It's what God said to me when you make mistakes with this boy.

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Make them on the side of grace.

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This picture is a contrast.

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You've probably, as I have been told, you have to be tough.

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Make them pay the price of their wrong choices.

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That in my mind is a picture of pushing away, of rejecting, of condemning.

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Yes, there are consequences to choices, but when I come at it with a tough push away attitude,

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all it does is send them away.

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But the Father, our Father, His Father, runs to Him and to us, encircles us in His loving

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arms, welcomes us back, throws a party, believes the best about a future for me, for my prodigal,

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for your prodigal.

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Yes, yes, we and they need boundaries and consequences.

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But even those are presented with welcoming loving arms.

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We make our mistakes on the side of grace as God, who isn't making a mistake, has done

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for us.

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He says, let my grace flow through you to them.

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So now it's your turn.

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Put yourself in the picture with your loved prodigal and with your loving God.

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How might we learn to help them learn by starting with a grace foot forward?

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Hopefully, as you've listened to what Scripture has said, what the definitions of grace are,

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how God has responded to you and to me, we are learning how He would like to use

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us as channels of His grace to our loved ones.

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May I encourage you to look for every opportunity, even when you have to enforce consequences,

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to do it with grace so that they know that you're not pushing them away.

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You're not rejecting them.

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You are instead really putting arms of love around them to help them grow and learn of

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how much grace God gives them and how He wants it to flow through them as well.

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So may I encourage you, even as you look for ways to show grace, to check some things we'll

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put in the show notes, some articles that might be helpful to you, including the voice

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of grace, which I've shared before.

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And also, I would really encourage you to take a minute, like this podcast, even subscribe

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to it and ask God to make His grace very real to you.

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God bless you.