Prodigal Son: Returning

This morning before we pray, Miss Janet has asked to be anointed, so if there's anybody

who would like to come and pray with her this morning, we'll anoint her during our prayer

time.

Father God, we are so thankful for the opportunity to come before you this morning.

And Lord, we fully acknowledge that there are a lot of needs in our congregation.

There are a lot of people who are going through various different things.

For the high and cash family who lost Scott this week and for Miss Marcia and her family

who lost her brother.

Lord, we pray for your Holy Spirit to be with them and come for them today.

And Father, we lift up all of our people, all of our shut-ins, everyone who's dealing with

so many issues.

But this morning, Lord, we come to you and we come to you in faith, we come to you in

obedience, your word.

It says that through faith, we come before you and come before the church, that we be

anointed so that you can heal and so that you can work and move.

So Father, in accordance, your word, we anointed Miss Janet this morning in the name of

God the Father.

Lord, you created her, you formed her in your mother's womb, and you knew a long time

ago that this week would come.

We anoint her in the name of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for her sins.

And Lord, while we come and we ask for physical healing, we are so thankful that you

have already healed her spiritually and that God, she stands in faith with you and

trusts in you and believes in you enough to come and do this this morning.

We anoint her in the name of the Holy Spirit, who fills her and fills all of us and

empowers us to serve you and to live for you.

And Lord, it's through your power that we believe that you can provide healing.

And if she has surgery this week, God, we pray that you would be with her, that you

would be with the doctors, Lord, everyone involved, that you would guide their hands

and you would guide them and all that will be done.

And Lord, that you would be with her body to help her body to respond well.

And Lord, when she comes out, Lord, we'll be able to come back and claim that you

have healed her, that you have done a great miracle through the works of your

people that you created as well.

Father, as we pray for our service this morning, as we said, I know that we have

many needs, but more than anything, God, we need you to work and move in our

lives. And so as we saying it as well, and as we saying, we surrender all, I pray

that as we come before you and we give our hearts and lives to you fully, the

God, you would work and move in us in powerful ways, that you would provide us

not only with the physical needs, but especially the spiritual ones or that

you would strengthen us and guide us and bring us into maturity so that we can

serve you and honor you and all that we do and say.

Father, thank you for the opportunity to come and to pray and seek your face.

And I pray that everything that's done here this morning would be pleasing and

honoring to you. For it's in Jesus Christ's name that we pray. And all God's

people said, Amen.

Happy Father's Day. It's good to be back together with you. I told the first

service, I think I've shared this before, I saw a video of a comedian one time

doing a skit, and he was talking about Father's Day of the list of holidays

that are celebrated in America. It's like the 19th on the list of being like

one of the least celebrated holidays in America. And the joke was, I don't even

know 19 other holidays to put before Father's Day. But a lot of times,

dads, you get picked over a little bit. I think Mother's Day definitely takes

the cake. We definitely sit second fiddle behind the moms and Mother's Day.

But thank you for everything you do. Thank you for being here today. You

could have taken the day off. You could have went to the lake. You could

have went fishing. You could have done a lot of different stuff. Thank you for

being here. My hope and prayer is that you get something great from today's

sermon. We're going to be in Luke 15, verses 11 through 32. Our series this

Luke 15:11–32

month is going to be talking about the prodigal son. Now this is a very familiar

passage of scripture. And typically when we talk about passages like this, one

of the things that I pray for leading up to these moments is that God would

speak to us and show us something new that maybe we've never seen or failed or

heard before as we read this passage. And so if this is a familiar

passage, you and you've read it a million times, great. Don't check out. The

prayer and hope is that God will speak something brand new to us through this

passage, which I believe God is more than able to do that. So as we talk about

the prodigal son this morning, I just want to kind of remind you that

prodigal originally kind of meant returning. You know, when we talk about

prodigal, we use it in a negative context. So when I actually looked it up,

the first definition is someone who lives lavishly or foolishly. So every

time we refer to someone as being a prodigal, we mean it in a negative

context. Someone who does something ridiculous or they're being foolish or

they're making bad decisions, maybe they've ran away or maybe they've

distanced themselves from the people who love and care about them. But

originally the word prodigal means returning. So the title of today's

sermon is returning. As we talk about the prodigal son, we're going to focus on

this aspect of the desire and the plan for God has always been for us as

people to return to him. So if you're sitting here this morning and you are a

believer and you've given your heart and life to Christ, you will fully understand

and know that you had to return to God. Like you understand in your life the

need for you to return to the Lord. And maybe if you're sitting here this

morning, you're not very spiritually mature. You haven't given your heart and

life to Christ yet. You haven't realized that you truly belong to God

and that you need to return to him. But hopefully the desire is that one day

you will have that realization. And that's what we're talking about this

morning. So read with me verses 11 through 32 of Luke chapter 15. We'll

Luke 15 · chapter mention

read this great passage. To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them the

story. A man had two sons. How many sons the man have? Two. Thank you. I've been at

kids camp all week so I'm just gonna make sure y'all paying attention. The

younger son told his father, I want my share of your estate now before you die.

So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons. Father agrees.

Everything's going good so far. A few days later, this younger son packed all

his belongings and moved to a distant land. Which son moved away? Younger one.

And there he wasted all of his money in wild living. About the time his money

ran out, a great famine swept over the land and he began to starve. He persuaded

a local farmer to hire him and the man sent him into the fields to feed the

pigs. The younger man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the

pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything. When he finally came to his

senses, he said to himself, at home, even the hired servants have food enough to

spare and here I'm dying of hunger. I will go home to my father and say,

father, I've sinned against both heaven and you and I'm no longer worthy of

being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant. So he returned home to

his father and while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming.

Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.

His son said to him, father, I've sinned against both heaven and you and I'm no

longer worthy of being called your son. But his father said to the servants,

quick, bring the finest robe in the house, put it on him, get a ring for his

finger and sandals for his feet and kill the calf we have been fattening. We must

celebrate with a feast for the son of mine was dead and has now returned to

life. He was lost but now he is found. So the party began. Meanwhile, the older

son was out in the fields working. Which son's out in the fields? Older. When he

returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house and he asked one of the

servants what was going on. Your brother is back, he was told, and your father has

killed the fattened calf and we are celebrating because of his safe return.

The older brother was angry and wouldn't go in. So his father came out and

begged him. But he replied, all these years I've slaved for you and never

once refused to do a single thing you told me to do. And at all that time he

never even gave me one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when the son

of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate

by killing the fattened calf. His father said to him, look dear son, you have

always stayed by me and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this

happy day for your brother was dead and has now come back to life. He was lost

but now he has found. Very familiar passage and as we talked this morning

about the returning of a son, the first point I want to bring to you this

morning is that sin brings about poor decisions and difficult circumstances. So

if you're writing it down, make sure you get that this morning. Sin brings about

poor decisions and difficult circumstances. So we have this younger son who is

far from wisdom. He's far from being godly. He's far from having maturity. He's

far from being responsible. But he comes to his father. He says, dad, I want your

share of the inheritance. I just want you to imagine this morning if one of your

kids came up to you, whether you're older or whether you're younger, maybe

your kids like seven, maybe your kids like 30 or 40. And they said, I want my

share of the inheritance now. How would that make you feel? For them to come up

and say, my desire is that almost like, it's almost like you're dead

already and I just want what's coming to me early. Think about how that would

make you feel. And there are theologians who I argue over this so you can look

up some writings that people have and some would say well this would be a

normal thing and some say this would be abnormal. But when you look at this

young man and you look at his desire and you look at his thought process in

this, there is nothing godly or spiritual or there's no good intentions in this

whatsoever. And at best, this would have been a very uncouth thing for this

young man to do, for him to come up and ask for early, even if it would have

been accepted. And the father agrees. He goes ahead and splits it between the

sons. He says, okay, I'm gonna go ahead and split it with you. Even though it

was accepted, even though the father allowed it, it would have been a very

uncouth thing to do. And so this young man not only takes the wealth before it

was his time to receive it, so he's jumping the gun, he's being impatient, but

then you see the next few days he moves off to a distant land so he can

live and do what he wants to do with this newfound thing that he's been

given, which he really didn't earn, okay? And the father permits him to do

this. And so in this story, remember, before you start getting critical, before

you start saying, well, that wasn't a very good thing to do, the father in this

story represents our heavenly Father God. And everything he does is right,

everything he does is just, everything he does is for our good and for our

benefit, whether we realize it or understand it sometimes. So in this, while

the father had every right to refuse the son in this moment, he gives the son

exactly what he asked for. And he sends his son off, and in the beginning of the

story is kind of G-rated, it talks about wild living, but you kind of see a

little bit of what that wild living is when the older brother says, well, he's

wasted all of his inheritance on prostitutes, partying. All the things that

you can imagine that a young man might be tempted to do and engage in, and he did

it, he went out, he lived, he followed his path, he did exactly what he wanted to do.

And you have to remind yourself sometimes as people that sin brings about

poor decisions and difficult circumstances. If you're a believer this

morning, you know this already, you don't have to be told this, this is kind of

like, duh, you already know. But sometimes you need to be communicating this

information to maybe your children or your grandchildren, or maybe just reminding

yourself because there might be something in your life that you see in

this world that you want or desire, and there's something within you that wants

to chase after this thing, and not necessarily follow what you know is

right or what God's leading you to do, and there's a desire for you to stray

away and go chase after this thing. And we have to remind ourselves that sin

brings about difficult situations and difficult circumstances. This father is

presented with this desire of this young man, and he has to make a decision of

whether or not he's going to let him go, or whether or not he's going to keep him

down under his thumb and suppress him and say, no, you're going to stay a

little longer, and you're going to do what I want you to do, and you're going

to earn your inheritance like you're supposed to, or whether or not he's

going to set him free to go experience what he's going to experience. And the

truth is every Christian is guilty of this. Some more than others, some of your

lives look a little more like this prodigal son than others do, but

truthfully, we have all been guilty of rebelling against our father and going

after something that we wanted, whether it be this certain specific sin, or

just going out and living our life and making the choices that we want to make

and doing things the way we want to. We're all guilty of this. This story about

the son, the returning son, the prodigal son, is about every single one of us, and

we have all been guilty of making decisions and doing things in life that

have put people that we love, our parents, our spouses, our children, that

when we make decisions for us, things that we want to live in sin, it puts

them in difficult situations and difficult circumstances. And as a result,

we as people need to be careful and remind ourselves to be patient and

loving towards our own children or grandchildren or other people around us

that we see who are making those same decisions, those same mistakes, and

they're putting you in difficult situations and difficult circumstances,

and they could literally in these moments be breaking your heart like you

were agonizing over them as you pray for them, and you're lifting them up in

prayers, and you're concerned for them, and they're just tearing you apart in

these moments, and just remember to be patient because we ourselves have done

our Heavenly Father the same exact way. We've done other people the same way,

we've done our Heavenly Father the same way, and sometimes I think God allows us

to go through these things just so we can get a little bit of a taste of

what it is that he goes through every single day with so many people in the

room and turning them against him and turning away from him. But sin brings

about poor decisions and difficult circumstances. And as you communicate

this to people, so I'm talking to some of you who are right now living for the

Lord and you have people in your life that you're trying to steer them back

and you want them to follow the Lord and you want them not to do some things

that they're trying to do right now, you need to be honest with those people

and remind them. Be honest about some of the decisions that you really messed up

in. To be honest about some of the sins that you engage in that maybe you're

ashamed of and you don't want to talk about because sometimes those people

need to be reminded that you were human too and you made mistakes too and that

whenever you did these things, these were the consequences and these were the

things that happened and this is how God basically slapped you in the face

one day waking up and saying, you're not where you're supposed to be, you need to

come back to me. They need to hear that, they need to know that. We can't gloss

over the truth and we can't sweep things under the rug, we have to be honest

with these people and give them the truth because it very much has

consequences. So in Galatians chapter 6 verses 7 through 8, Paul's writing to

Galatians 6:7–8

the Church of Galatia and he's talking to them about some of their sins and some

of the ways that they've been messing up and straying away from the Lord and in

verse 7 he says, don't be misled, you cannot mock the justice of God. See a lot

of times we as people, we choose stuff and we do stuff and we don't think about

the consequences, especially the younger you are, you don't think about what's

coming down the road, you just go do it. But you can't mock the justice of

God. You will always harvest what you plant aka, you've probably heard this more,

you reap what you sow. You will always harvest what you plant. Verse 8, those who

live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from

that sinful nature and that should be common sense but it's not because we

live in this world, we live in a sinful world and everyone sins and we see all the

sin around us and so a lot of times we think well it sins normal because

everybody else is sinning and they're doing this and they seem to be getting

away with it. But we have to remind ourselves as believers and teach this

to our young ones and our people who are coming up behind us that God did not

create this world for sin to flourish in. God literally created this world to be

absent from sin. When he put Adam and Eve in the garden it was perfect, everything in

it was perfect and what happened when Adam and Eve took from the tree that

they weren't supposed to take from and eat? He punished them, he cast them out of

the garden, he removed the perfection, he removed everything they needed, he took

away the tree of life and so even though they didn't die right there in

that moment they begin the process of dying as he removed them from the

source of eternal life in that garden in that moment. God did not create the world

to sustain sin and rebellion against him. God created this world to make

righteousness and godliness flourish in your life. Now there are going to be

some times where choosing to do the right thing will be difficult. There are

going to be times where people may give you a hard time and you may face

a little bit of persecution, you may face a little bit of taunting from other

people for doing the right thing, but I can promise you from 20-something years of

personal experience of being a believer that doing the right thing and

following what God wants us to do in the long run makes life so much easier. It

doesn't mean that I'm best friends with everybody on earth, it doesn't mean

that everybody approves of everything I do, but following God's Word and following

what I feel like he's leaving me doing life makes life so much easier. In the

long run God has designed this world to make godliness and righteousness flourish

and you see that at the end of verse 8. It says, but those who live to please the

Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. You choose sin, you

choose selfishness, you harvest decay and destruction, you choose righteousness,

you choose to please the Spirit, you harvest everlasting life. This is what God

has called us to do and in our life, whatever we choose, we will reap what we

sow, we will harvest whatever it is that we plant and when you look at the

story of the prodigal son, the returning son, you see the example in that son

goes off, he chooses his own path, he does exactly what he wants to do and he

reaps a harvest of consequences that he never saw coming, he never fathomed

coming that would ever be like that, but he had to reap it and he had to harvest it

anyway against his will, but if we reap righteousness and

godliness and we live to please the Spirit, we will harvest everlasting life.

That's the reward for it, that's what God and that's what Christ is trying to

communicate in this and so understand this morning we're all prodigals, we've

all rebelled against our heavenly Father, we've all rebelled against people that

we love and you know in our lives, we've caused hurt, we've caused pain in many

different ways, but the plan is God's desire for us is, is for us to return

and in this we have to be patient with one another and you will be put in

difficult situations and circumstances, they will be hard, they will be hard to

navigate through, sin makes it so difficult to just navigate through life in

general because of the consequences that come with it, but God's plan is for us to

return, God's plan is for us to be loving and patient with one another and

allowing us to return, so point number two, it's gonna be a little bit of a

tough one, but God will turn you loose. God will turn you loose. I don't know if any of you've

ever had a, you know, a dog or something and you know that as soon as you take

that thing off the leash or off the chain or whatever, it's just gonna go

wild and you might not ever catch it again. You ever have experience like that?

For you as a person, a lot of times we like to think that God's laws and what he

calls us to do are more restrictive. It's almost like captivity when in reality

it's, it's there to protect us, it's there to guard us and keep us from really

hurting ourselves a lot of times, but if you fight so hard against the Lord,

you know, one of the things that we believe is that we have free will, that

you and I can refuse the Lord, we can turn away from the Lord, that we can choose

to serve ourselves rather than serve our God, and if you fight hard against that

and you want to go do your thing, that God will turn you loose to walk down

the path that you choose, and you see that here in the story. The Father

actually lets the Son go. Now, now it's not, doesn't mean that it's easy, it

doesn't mean it's painful, it doesn't mean that that's what the Father wanted for

the Son, but he was willing to let him go, and I don't, you need to understand this

morning, God is not going to sit here and hold you underneath his thumb and

force you as a believer, force you to believe, or force you to do anything for

him. He wants us to desire him. He wants us to want to live for him and to be

obedient to him, so he's not going to force you to do anything, and if you

fight and if you are trying to get away from the Lord, you need to

understand this morning that God will turn you loose to let you go down the

paths that you want to take. That's a scary thing, and it's even scarier to

think that as believers this morning, there might be people in your life who

you love very much, that you've prayed for, you've invested a lot in, that as

as mothers and fathers or grandparents or aunts and uncles or just friends or

whatever, that you just need to turn them loose and let them go do whatever it

is that they're wanting to do so bad because God turns us loose to make our

decisions, to experience those consequences and see what life is like for

ourselves. You know, we're in the middle of raising three really young kids right

now, and today, six and under, none of our kids has professed to come to the point

where they realize, I want Jesus to save me from my sins. I'm a sinner, we need to

be forgiven of our sins, I want Jesus to be Lord of my life. They just haven't

reached that point yet, which is fine. They pray, they read Scripture, we've done

Scripture memorization with them, but they just haven't got there yet, and as

I think about my three kids, I can't imagine what it's gonna feel like one day

whenever they get to the point where they have to choose for themselves and

the thought of just having to turn them loose and let them walk those paths and

make those decisions and choose sin over God or choose to say, I don't want you to

be over my life, I want to go and I want to move to a distant land, I want to go

do what I want to do, and I want to be my own person, I want to make my own decisions. I

can imagine the pain, the difficult situation, difficult circumstance that

that would be for one of your kids or grandkids or somebody like that to say

that and do that, but it is biblical. We see that our Heavenly Father turns the

Son loose in this parable to say, you need to understand what it's like to

choose your own path, and I'm willing to let you go do that as your Father, and

it's gonna cost you. You know, the Son, like He squanders everything, He wastes it

all, loses everything, has nothing to show for it, but He lets him go anyway.

Isaiah chapter 53 verse 6, this is a really prominent passage, a prominent

Isaiah 53:6

chapter in Scripture. God is speaking to Isaiah and He's given him information

about what the coming Messiah is going to be like, so Isaiah is prophesying about

Jesus and who He's gonna be and what's gonna happen, but as He's prophesying

Jesus, He gives us this great verse in verse 6 that says, all of us like sheep

have strayed away. We have left God's path to follow our own, yet the Lord

laid on him the sins of us all. Every single one of us have strayed away.

We've all sinned, we've all rebelled against God. You cannot be a believer in

Jesus Christ if you do not acknowledge the fact that you have sinned against

your father, that you've turned away from him, and that you've needed the blood of

Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins and to cover you and bring you back into

fellowship with God. You can't even be saved until you acknowledge that. And

when you look at Isaiah, which is written about 750 years before Christ

was born, and this prophecy about Jesus talks about how we're all

sheep that have strayed away. We've all wandered away from God, we've all sinned,

we all need Jesus to forgive us of our sins. And as an individual who's walking

with Christ now, I can remember so vividly before I was saved, multiple

times, people trying to tell me about Christ. I can remember lessons that

Sunday school teachers did when I was a kid, when I was a teenager, and I

remember them, I remember what they were about, and I was not ready to

accept Christ at that time. I can remember people like Franklin Walker who

would come in and do devotions with the baseball team and the football team

beforehand, and he would preach the gospel and he would present the message

of salvation, and for whatever reason at that time in my life I was not ready to

listen or to give my life to Christ. And there was nothing that anyone could

say or do to make me see it or understand it before that time. But I can

remember the moment when God first started speaking to me, and I felt God

speaking through my heart, and revealing to me the sin in my life, and how much I

needed him, and how much I needed forgiveness, and how much my life was not

going where it should be going, and how it needed to go in a different

direction. And it wasn't until then that I began to realize and accept the fact

that I needed to return to my Heavenly Father, where I was supposed to be. And

so this morning, if you're one of these people who's on your own path right now,

and you're doing what you want to do, you need to understand there will be a

moment in time where God is pulling at your heart. There's nothing that no one

can tell you. There's nothing they can do to convince you. It's going to be a

moment in your life when God speaks to you, and He reveals truth to you, and you

have to make a decision as to whether or not you're going to listen to that voice,

and you're going to be obedient to that Father, and you're going to return to Him

the way you should be. And if you're a parent or a grandparent, and you're

praying for someone that you love, and they're ripping your heart out right

now, and you're so concerned about them, you need to understand there's

nothing that you can do to convince that kid or that person to give their

heart and life to Jesus Christ. It's going to have to be a moment that God

ordades to send the right people at the right place at the right time, and sadly

your kid may have to end up in a field feeding a bunch of pigs starving to death

for them to see it. But it's going to have to be whenever God speaks to them

because there's nothing that you can do to convince them otherwise. The Father

gave His Son what He asked for and turned Him loose to go make the

decisions that He needed to make, which takes us to point three. God will let

you have the full taste of what you asked for.

You know, this young man got everything he asked for in this parable. He went to

his father. He wanted the wealth. He got the wealth. He moved off. He did exactly

what he wanted to do. He spent all the money. He wasted everything that his

family had worked for to build up for him to receive. He threw it all away in a

matter of months. All of his friends were gone. Everything was gone. He did

everything that he wanted to do, and the Father allowed him to do that. And

sometimes we as people just need to be faced with this hard truth of, I got

exactly what I asked for, and I realized this isn't what I wanted. Then

even when I make the decisions in my life and I choose where I want to go and I

choose what I want to do, my life is not how I wanted it to be, and maybe it'll be

better off in God's hands than in my hands because I'm screwing this up. The

sad part is, is that God will let you have a full taste of what it is that we

asked for, and God, again, He did not create this world for sin to thrive in

it. And so if this is you this morning or if this is someone that you love that

you're thinking about this morning, we just need to remind ourselves today, if we're

choosing sin, God did not create this world for sin to thrive. There will be

consequences, and so many times the consequences are so much more than what

we would ever be willing to bear or pay if we knew what they were going to be.

God wants us to come to this point where we realize life with Him is so much

better than just life for what we want. And so whether it's you or whether it's

someone that you love, we should be praying God, speak to them, show them.

Before it's too late, before they have to experience too much, before it's so

painful that maybe there are some things that we may not ever come back

from, speak to them now, speak to me now, help me to see. And that's the main point

of today's sermon, is that God wants us to come back. God wants us to return. You

know, He gives you the freedom, He gives you the ability to choose choices, and

so many times we think, well, why didn't God protect me? Why didn't God do this?

Why didn't God do that? And knowing full well that so many times we make

choices and we do things and we bring so much on ourselves that God never

intended for us to experience. But God wants us to come back. We're all part of

that prodigal son's story. It's on every one of our lives. Even when you look at

Genesis 3, when man and woman first sinned and God removes them from the

garden of Eden, the very first thing he says is, all right, you choose sin, you

need to understand what life is going to be like absent from my presence, absent

from me coming down and walking with you every day in the cool evening, absent of

me coming in and providing every single thing for you that you need or you

could ever want or ever have. You need to understand what life is like without

me in it, and that's exactly what God will make us experience. And the awesome

thing is, is that God has set everything up for us to return. You know, we're gonna

talk about some more parts of this story next week in the following week, but

you know, to think about the end and the fact that the son returns and the

father's waiting on him and sees him and the son says what he had planned to say,

but he doesn't have to because the father welcomes him in any way and brings

him in and treats him as if nothing had ever happened. That's the Heavenly Father

that we get to return to. Not the one who's gonna come and beat you over the

head and constantly reminds you of what you did and how you failed and see I

told you so, like it's it's not that kind of God that we serve, but the

finest robe on you and the ring that identifies who you are that you belong

to him and kills the fat and calf and has the feasts and celebrates because he

is glad that you came back to him because that was the plan all along.

Let's pray. Father God, we are so thankful for the opportunity to be here

today and to be able to read your word and be able to have such a familiar

passage and Lord, I pray that you would speak into our hearts and remind us of

who you are and the desires that you have for our life. Lord, there's so many

of us in this room and and Lord, we all have different stories and we've all

chosen different paths and we've all asked for different things, but or we've

all rebelled, we've all sinned, we've all fallen and Lord, your greatest desires for

us to return to you. So Lord, if there's anybody in this room who needs to return,

God, I pray that you would speak into their hearts and Lord, that you would

just let them know how much you want them to return and all the wonderful things

you have for them and Lord, if there's any of us who are praying for someone

right now in our lives that we really love who needs to return to you, but

they're just choosing their own paths and they're choosing their own sins. God, I

pray that you would help us to be at peace with the process for you to turn

them loose so that they can see with their own eyes how much better life is

with you in it. Lord, help us all to return to you. There's what you've

always wanted us to do. We love you. We thank you. We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.