By Olubunmi Adebayo
*We continue today with the above topic that we started yesterday.*
*C) THE DECISION OF THE PRODIGAL SON TO “ARISE”, WAS A DECISION OF ACTION.*
*The prodigal son didn’t just make up his mind, he took action and moved.*
*Note this information from the Psychologist table :*
*There are two kinds of sorrows :*
*i) Godly sorrow that leads to positive ACTION.*
*ii) Worldly sorrow that leads to DEPRESSION :*
*2 Cor 7:[10] For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.*
*For someone sitting among pigs, to arise means:*
*To leave your sitting position.*
*To leave the pigs behind.*
*To leave the citizens of that country who enslaved you.*
*You cannot go to the Father while still holding onto the foreign country.*
*This is why the call to embrace salvation is critical to a new beginning in God.*
*Several people have failed to make progress in life despite their precarious state because they never took the action to arise.*
*Many of us pray “God help me” while still sitting at our old location. God is saying “Arise first. And you will see me run with you”.*
*D) IT WAS A DECISION OF DIRECTION : “GO TO MY FATHER”.*
*He didn’t say “I will arise and continue to endure or go to my friends or go to another city or go and fix myself.”*
*He knew where the solution was – “MY FATHER”.*
*Notice, he still called his Dad – “my father” even after he had insulted Him.Why? Because he remembered his father’s nature. He remembered that even his father’s servants had enough bread to eat and still have “left overs”.*
*This is faith. Repentance is not just running from sin; it is running to the Father – God.*
*Joel 2:13 says “Rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful.”*
*He didn’t go to any other place to renegotiate his sonship – he went to his father. True repentance understands that only the Father you offended can restore you.*
*E) IT WAS A HUMBLE DECISION – HE WENT WITHOUT GUARANTEE.*
*Note this critical fact : he had no promise that he would be accepted by the father.*
*For all he knew, his father might slap him, his elder brother might drive him away, the village might stone him for doing such an unthinkable thing.*
*Look at his message of mercy to the father : “Make me as one of thy hired servants.” He was willing to lose his title of sonship in order to be near the father again.*
*This is true repentance – it doesn’t negotiate. The negotiation here was a repentance negotiation – “Even if I am only a servant, I would rather be a servant in my father’s house than a king in the far country.”*
*And because he was willing to be a servant, the father made him a son again.*
*F) WHAT HAPPENED AFTER HE AROSE?*
*Between arising and arriving, there was a long walk.*
*The pig smell was still on him. The shame was still all over him. But every step away from the pig pen was a step toward restoration.*
*”And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him” -Lk 15:20*.
*You take one step — God takes ninety-nine. You arise, God runs. You go to Him, God restores all the way.*
*LET US COME BACK TO YOU AS AN INDIVIDUAL READING THIS PIECE :*
*You have sat long enough in that habit – that bitterness, that secret sin, that self-pity, that disappointment, etc.*
*The decision that changed the prodigal’s destiny was not made in heaven. It was made in the pig pen when he said :*
*I WILL ARISE AND GO TO MY FATHER.*
*I ask you too – “why not make that same decision today?”*
Top of the day to you 👍
©️ Olubunmi S Adebayo.
