Me:  Howdy Prodigal!

 

Prodigal:  I have been waiting for you, what do you have to encourage me today?

 

Me:  Let me share from a book I have been reading.

 

Tim Chester in the book You Can Change writes the following

 

We want to justify ourselves–to demonstrate we’re worthy of God or respectable in the eyes of other people.  But we’re justified only through faith in what Christ has done.  When you feel the desire to prove yourself, remember you’re right with God in Christ.  You can’t do anything to make yourself more acceptable to God than you already are.  You don’t need to worry whether people are impressed by you because you’re already justified or vindicated by God.  And what makes you feel good is not what you’ve done, but what Christ has done for you.  Your identity isn’t dependent on your change.  You’re a child of the heavenly King.

 

Guess what?

You are reading something that was written by a daughter of God who:

Has sinned and hurt others…

Has sinned and hurt herself in the process….

Has chosen disobedience instead of obedience….

Has not always loved God’s people the way they should be loved…

Has followed the temptations of the world that made God weep…

Has remained silent instead of speaking up to witness God’s power and love…

Has received the constant love and faithfulness of God who has never left her one second during all this…..

 

Isaiah 40:31

But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;  they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org