5-16-2014

      Good Morning All,

        Luke 15:17; “But when he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger!”

    I once listened to a woman tell her story.  She told how she grew up in a home that went to church every Sunday.  Her mom sang in the choir and taught Sunday School.  Her dad was on the church council.  She was active in the youth group.  Yet when she went away from home and went to college; she decided that she would travel her own path.

    So she listened to “friends” and soon she was into illicit drugs, illicit sex and out of college.  She got married, for a year, but then went back to the drugs and the sex.  During the years she had a child, who lived with her parents.  Finally, one day she was arrested on drug charges.  As she was sitting in the jail, her former sister-in-law came to see her.  The sister-in-law looked at her and asked her, “have you sunk low enough yet?” “Have you come to your senses yet?”

    For whatever the reason, those questions really hit her hard.  Eventually, she went through a rehab stay and began the hard path back.  She reconciled with her parents, then her sister and brothers, then with her ex-husband and with her child. Yet first it was with God.  She knew, deep down, she was going the wrong path but just didn’t let go.  It wasn’t until she had lost her family, her freedom and her dignity.  It wasn’t until she had hit the bottom that she realized what she had thrown away.

    Our verse is from “The Prodigal Son” and it relates his moment of clarity.  He had finally had enough and headed back to his father.  Many of us know of Jesus and his saving grace but we insist on our own path.  We want God in our life but it must be on our terms in our fashion.  As long as we fight against God, we will struggle, we will be lost and we will go down a curvy, twisted path of destruction.  Eventually, you will hit bottom, when will you come to your senses? 

    When you hit bottom, when you come to your senses, know that God will be there waiting to pick you up.  Your sins will put you at the bottom but God, in his mercy, has forgiven those sins but he also wants you to know that you have to “go and sin no more.”  Sin destroys our relationship with God; it drives us away from his grace.  We suffer, until we take by faith, that God’s plan is the best for us.  We suffer, when we place our own selfishness desires over God’s grace.

   Yet God continually comes to you and asking you if you have had enough.  Have carried the burden and the pain of your sin enough?  His grace is sufficient for you.  Trust his promises to redeem you and to make you whole.  Trust his grace to pick you up and clean you off.  You have had enough of the devil’s lies; believe God.

Father of mercy, you know our pain and our fear.  There are times when we are so lost that we see nothing but despair.  Yet you pick us up by your wonderful love.  Guide us to see our only hope is in you.  Keep us in your arms.  In the precious name of Jesus, our risen Savior, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret