Devotions

The parable of the prodigal son is about two sons: one who comes to the end of his own resources and one who would not claim his father’s resources. The parable is also about the father’s unconditional love and the provisions in his home.

The younger son went to his father and said, “Give me the portion of goods that falls to me” (Luke 15:12, NKJV). The portion he received and then wasted represents his own interests: his talents, his abilities, everything he used to manage his life. He said, “I have intelligence, good wits, a good background. I can do it on my own.”

The younger son’s attitude describes many Christians today. How soon we come to the end of our own resources when things go south. We can figure our way out of some problems, but the time comes when famine strikes the soul.

You come to the end of yourself, not knowing which way to turn. Your friends can’t help you. You are left empty, hurting, with nothing left inside to draw upon. Your fight is gone, and all that remain are fear, depression, emptiness, hopelessness.

Are you still hanging around the devil’s pigpen, wallowing in emptiness, starving to death? That is what happened to the prodigal son. He had exhausted all his own resources, and he realized where all his self-reliance had brought him. What finally brought him to the end was remembering the abundant provisions in his father’s house. He said, “I’m starving here, but in my father’s house there is bread enough to spare!” He decided then and there to return home and appropriate his father’s bountiful provisions.

Nothing in this parable indicates that the prodigal came back because of love for his father. True, he was repentant; in fact, he fell on his knees, crying, “Father, I’m sorry! I’ve sinned against you and against God. I’m not worthy to come into your house,” but he never said, “Father, I came back because I love you!”

What is revealed here is that the God’s love for us is without strings; it is not dependent upon our loving him. He loved us even when we were far away from him in our hearts. That is unconditional love.

“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God” (1 John 3:1).

Samson was the last judge of ancient Israel noted in the book of Judges. Known for his superhuman strength, he was a man whose birth had been foretold by an angel and who was bound from the womb to the Nazirite vow of piety and separation. Samson was loved and favored by the Lord. Scripture tells us, “And the woman bore a son and called his name Samson. And the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him” (Judges 13:24, ESV). His birth came at a time when Israel, having backslidden and been subjugated by the Philistines, needed a new deliverer. In his mercy, God gave them Samson.

For twenty years, Samson delivered the goods for Israel as their judge and warrior, but he suffered an inner captivity to his appetites that would be his ultimate undoing. His life was marked by violence, and each stage of its unraveling became more shocking than the last. Here was an iconic figure, terrifying and godlike to his enemies yet a passionate leader of his people. He was pressed by his destiny; he felt its weight. Samson’s ego and chaotic personal life began to overshadow his mission, and he repeatedly ignored the warning signs of downfall. He was high on the risk of it all, propelled by a need to see how close to the line he could go. Finally, his luck ran out.

Samson’s life – the blessing, the ruin and his ultimate repentance - presents us today with an opportunity to examine ourselves. Most of us don’t live on his level of intensity, but we can certainly relate to his humanity. Anger, check. Lust, check. Grudge-bearing, revenge, arrogance — check. It’s the sins of the flesh, and they’re wily; they don’t always show up in dramatic fashion. In fact, evil usually does its damage in the most mundane, ordinary circumstances. Notice that Samson’s final, fatal capture happened while he was asleep.

God enjoins us, then, to be vigilant; to pay attention when our egos want to take charge. It’s often easiest to default to our own strength and unreliable feelings, but to succeed we must step back and let the Holy Spirit lead.

Your appetites will weigh you down, the apostle Paul noted; don’t give them reign: “Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).

David was a man after God’s heart yet had a fallen nature that is evident in scripture. In 1 Samuel 30:1-8, David and his warriors returned from battle to find that the Amalekites had burned their homes in Ziklag and taken the women and children.

While David had not yet been officially crowned king, he had already been anointed by God to be king and to take up kingly responsibilities for others. However, he made the costly mistake here of leaving women and children vulnerable to the enemy. The scripture says that David and his men wept until they had no strength to weep any more. There is a place for anguish over the cost of mistakes or sin. In fact, may God give us the fortitude to weep over brokenness.

David’s difficulties were far from over, however. 1 Samuel 30 says that the men were so grieved over the situation that they began to discuss stoning David. While David had to bear some responsibility for the outcome of his choice, the decision had not been malicious, and stoning him was not the correct response. On top of this, David’s family had been captured too, and he was grieving his own losses. It would have been so easy for him to look at the unfairness of the situation and lash out at the men.

Instead, the scripture says that in the middle of his distress, “David strengthened himself in the Lord his God” (1 Samuel 30:6, ESV). David was honest about his failure but rested in the amazing power of God’s mercy. Once he had privately strengthened himself in God’s presence, David took a very important next step. He told Abiathar the priest to bring him the ephod, which was the covering of a priest. As a father, husband and leader myself, I know the temptation must have been to rush out to recover his stolen family. However, David learned the lesson of moving and not prayerfully seeking God’s will first.

This speaks so powerfully to me of not relying on my ‘strategies’ or my ‘know-how’ to drive back spiritual darkness. God alone has the power to defeat the darkness, and he knows the path to triumph. Perhaps you are dealing with intense situations, some where you may even be partially at fault. The redeeming power of God’s kindness remains; God is faithful even in the moments where we have not been faithful.

_{John Bailey is the COO of World Challenge Inc. and the Founding Pastor of The Springs Church in Jacksonville, Florida. John has been serving the Lord in pastoral ministry for 35 years, ministering the gospel in over 50 nations, particularly as a pastor and evangelist in Cork, Ireland.}

You cannot divorce God’s provisions from his love. He has given us provision for every crisis in life to help us live victoriously at all times!

I once prayed, “Lord, I want to know your heart. I can’t get a true understanding of your love for me from any of the books in my library, or even from the holiest men who ever lived. I want my own revelation of your love, directly from your heart. I want to see it so clearly it changes the way I walk with you and the way I minister.”

I prayed for weeks, not knowing what to expect. Would this revelation of his love come rushing into my soul like a flood? Would it appear as some great insight that would leave me breathless? Would it be a feeling of being very special to him or perhaps a touch of his hand on me so real it would change me forever?

No, God spoke to me through a simple little verse: “God so loved...that he gave...” (John 3:16, NKJV). His love is tied to his riches in glory, his bountiful provision for us.

The Bible says our love for the Lord is shown by our obedience to him. His love for us, however, is evidenced by his giving! You cannot know him as a loving God until you see him as a giving God. God so loved us that he invested in his Son Jesus all the treasures, glory and bounties of the Father, and then he gave him to us. Christ is God’s gift to us.

“For it pleased the Father that in him all the fullness should dwell” (Colossians 1:19). “For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2:9-10). In other words, “In him you have everything you need!”

Few Christians take the time to appropriate what God has freely offered. We don’t go after or take possession of it, and the treasures of Christ often lie in glory, unclaimed.

What a shock we are going to have when we arrive in heaven! God will show us all the riches his love had provided and how we did not use them.

You and I need a greater understanding of God’s love. After reading 1 John, I realized how very little I know about living in God’s love. “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him” (1 John 4:16, NKJV).

Many Christians know about God’s love for them only theologically. They have learned the scriptures and have heard them preached, and yet their understanding is limited to a line from a children’s chorus: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

We believe God loves us, the world and the lost, but it is an abstract faith! Not many Christians can say with authority, “I know Jesus loves me because I understand what his love is. It is the foundation of my daily walk.”

Is your daily walk bereft of belief in God’s love? Do you instead live under a cloud of guilt, fear and condemnation? God did not save you to live in condemnation. Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life” (John 5:24). “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1).

Guilt and condemnation are of the devil. One meaning of condemnation is wrath. This means that on the Judgment Day you will be free from God’s wrath. But condemnation also means “the feeling of never measuring up to standards.” And the Word is teaching us that the believer will not be subject to the feeling of never measuring up!

“That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19).

Rooted and grounded means “to have a deep and stable foundation of knowing and understanding God’s love for you.” That knowledge is the foundational truth upon which all other truths must build!