Living After the Homecoming: Make Friends for Eternity

You know, when I think about this, I just realized how how different I am from god's father. You know, I am critical by nature, and, it is hard for me to see anything anybody does and not to see the negative aspects. That's not enough. That's not repentance. He's just being self serving. Let's give him some time to see if he really repents. You know, I don't see that in the scriptures. God runs and embraces and says, I know this is all you can do at this moment and it's enough. It's enough. [00:17:02] (31 seconds)  #EmbraceLikeTheFather

That genuine repentance is faith that produces a change of mind. It was better with my dad's house. I was wrong. A change of mind which results in a change of direction. I wanna go home. I wanna go home. And the amazing thing is god the father graciously and gladly embraces such steps of faith from their wobbly beginnings. [00:16:34] (28 seconds)  #RepentanceIsReturn

Why does he do that? Well, first of all, what he's doing is this. He's not clinging onto what's already slipping away. Right? The temptation is to hold onto something that's slipping away. But he just he realizes, I gotta let that go. And he uses what remains. What little power and authority that he has, he uses that to lift up other people, not to preserve himself. And in doing so, this is very interesting. What he's doing is he's binding himself to those people he's helping so that his future becomes their future. [00:23:40] (40 seconds)  #UseWhatRemainsToLiftOthers

So God graciously and continually and gladly embraces such steps of faith from the wobbly beginnings and works in us so that we continue to grow progressively. That's what being born again is all about, that we grow step by step. And we remain patient and encouraging and gracious towards one another as we see each other grow. [00:20:31] (23 seconds)  #GrowingInGrace

You know, when VIPs come in, it's hard not to be critical sometimes and not to doubt. Right? And and sometimes we put up barriers. But, really, I I believe what god does is look into each one of our hearts, and when he detects when he detects these wobbly steps of repentance, god gladly embraces us. And when we find ourselves in the presence of god and and the and the ministry of god's word and the and and the and the spirit of god who works among us, guess what? Every one of us, little by little, starting with our us ourselves, will inevitably be and progressively be changed and be transformed. [00:19:25] (44 seconds)  #WobblyStepsEmbraced

And, again, this is pretty radical that in such a time of stress for himself, he realizes what will save him is kind of ironically not him trying to save himself. What will self save him is by caring for the other people who needs his help, who he can help. He cannot help himself, but with the last remaining bit of bit of power and ability that he had, he's decided to help others that he could help. And I believe this is what Jesus was praising. [00:24:40] (32 seconds)  #ServeOthersSaveYourself

In the midst of that time of despair, he thinks very soberly and calculates, okay. I know what I'll do. My only future is that people will welcome me into their homes. And that's his bright spot. It wasn't another job. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't an excuse. It wasn't anything else. He was just like, okay. I have nothing else but potentially people who will welcome me. And so he makes a decisive turn. He lets go of what's in hand. [00:11:57] (34 seconds)  #HospitalityIsHope

And so in the same spirit, the master of our parable says, you know what? Yes. You are a horrible manager. Yes. You probably cheated me and lost me lots of money. And what you did is probably unethical or maybe at best borderline ethical, cutting all the deals behind my back. But guess what? I'm gonna look at that, and I'm gonna see your heart, your desire for a better future, your and and what you did with those debtors. And I'm going to say, wow. That's pretty cool. I gladly accept that, and I will praise you for that even though you are an unrighteous person. That also is the heart of our god. [00:17:33] (47 seconds)  #GraceSeesFutureNotPast