Luke 15:13-20 is part of the parable Jesus tells that we usually refer to as “The Prodigal Son.” It says in v.13,

“The younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. ¹⁴ After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵ So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. ¹⁶ He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

¹⁷ “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! ¹⁸ I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ ²⁰ So he got up and went to his father.”

Jesus tells this parable about a son who demands his inheritance from his father and then goes off and blows it living fast and loose. But when he wakes up one day, broke and all of the “friends” who hung around when the money was flowing long gone, he’s forced to take a job slopping pigs, just hoping to get some of the scraps they eat, unable to fill his own stomach.

And v.17 says, “When he came to his senses.” I don’t think there’s a better description of the initial moments of repentance than that. It’s what we call in Celebrate Recovery “a moment of clarity” or “hitting bottom.” It’s when your eyes open to the fact that things are wrong and have to change.

When your lies have woven a web of deceit that get you thoroughly entangled, and you finally grasp that you have to start living with integrity. When you realize that ignoring God’s standards on sexual intimacy has caused you a lot of avoidable problems. When you recognize that holding that grudge and harboring that resentment toward the person who hurt you is destroying YOU, not them, and is drawing you away from the close relationship with Christ that you want.

That phrase, “When he came to his senses,” reminds us that following Christ—living the way He leads us to live—is not only better for our spiritual walk, but that it’s the sensible, rational, best way to live life. Coming to our senses is a good way to put it when we start to live life based on the truth, and not the lies and rationalizations we use to convince ourselves that doing things our own way is just fine.

And that mindset led the son to true repentance—including an attitude so humble that he was content to just be one of his father’s servants.

The great part about that parable is that the father loves the son so much—despite how the son hurt him—that he offers incredible grace when his son returns. He doesn’t just take him on as a servant; he restores him to his place as his son—and celebrates the fact that he’s back. Just like God does with us.

Lent is a time of repentance, as we look ahead to the sacrifice Jesus made that allowed us to receive God’s grace. As we pray today, let’s take a close look at our life and the areas where we need to “come to our senses,” and pray that God would help us to put aside those things in our life that aren’t the way He would have them to be, and live to follow Him more closely.

One of my favorite commercials from a few years ago is the one where a guy is getting a tattoo, and when he looks at the finished product it says, “No regerts.”

How many times have you heard someone say they have no regrets in life? Every once in a while, I hear that from someone, and I wonder if it’s just bravado or if they really mean it. It’s not healthy to live your life bogged down by the mistakes you’ve made, but to go through life with no regrets means that you either think yourself to be perfect, or you’re a psychopath who has no conscience.

We all have regrets. We’ve all done things we look back on and wish like anything we could change. That’s something most of us realize even if Romans 3:23 didn’t remind us of it.

But while we can’t change the past, we can do something about today—and tomorrow. Romans 8:1 says, “There is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We don’t have to wallow in our past mistakes. We can focus on doing better today and tomorrow.”

As you pray today, thank God for the fact that—because of Jesus—we can have forgiveness for the things we regret, and don’t have to dwell on them forever.

Philippians 1:12-14 says, “Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.”

Luke 7:11-13 (NIV)

“Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. ¹² As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. ¹³ When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, ‘Don’t cry.’”

There’s something special about these moments with Jesus, where we see the compassion He had for people up close and personal. We see it when He’s standing at the tomb of His friend Lazarus—where He’s moved to the point of tears. And this is how deep His compassion is: He knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead and His friend was going to walk out of that tomb alive, but He was still so moved by his love for His friend that He wept. Matthew 20 tells of the compassion He had for the blind men in Jericho who called out to Him and asked for their sight.

And we see it here with a widow who has lost her only son. A woman in that day and time who lost her husband and her sons had no way to support herself. So this was more than just a personal, emotional loss. There was a practical fear of what would happen to her with her son gone. And Jesus had compassion on her in her pain.

The Greek word that’s translated compassion here refers to one’s inner organs being twisted and churned up. Jesus feels our distress and our pain on a deep level. And regardless of how He responds—whether solving our issue or walking with us through it—He cares deeply about everything we face in life.

As you pray today, thank the Lord for His great compassion for you, and ask for help trusting Him in every situation.

Read Isaiah 55:10-12a

“For as the rain comes down from heaven and waters the earth, so shall my word go out of my mouth…and accomplish that what I please and it shall prosper where I sent it. For you shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace.”

I Corinthians 15:58 says “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

Many of us have the tendency to judge others.  We judge people for faults that we struggle with ourselves.  Rather than face these things in our lives, we see them in those around us.  Jesus addresses our judgmental habits in Matthew 7.  Jesus explains we need to first take the speck out of our own eye and then we will be able to see the speck in the other person’s eye more clearly.

Lent can be a time to confront the specks in our own eyes and ask God for help to remove them.  We can become less judgmental, and more understanding of what others face – we can become more compassionate.

This being St. Patrick’s Day, and me being of Irish descent, I thought I’d look up a little bit of information about him. He was born in England sometime in the fifth century when the Romans controlled it. At sixteen, young Patrick was captured by pirates and taken to Ireland as a slave, where he was held for six years. He spent much of that time as a shepherd, and he wrote that it really helped his spiritual development.

It’s interesting to me that he would go back to Ireland—to the place where he had been enslaved—to share the gospel with them. Jesus said, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” It’s one thing to forgive the coworker who blows his stack at you and then apologizes. Choosing to go to the country where you spent six years as a slave, in order to win them to Christ, is at an entirely different level.

But then again, when you think that Jesus chose to come to earth, to live among the people who were sinning against Him, for the express purpose of sacrificing His life for those people, it seems like he was just trying to be a good follower of Christ. You and I should be so dedicated.

As you pray today, thank God for Jesus’ incredible dedication to us—the very people who sin against Him—and ask for His help to have the same love for others that He had for us.

“I remember having conversations with my dad about him losing friends and officers in the line of duty. I’ve heard all the stories you can think of, but I’ve always had such a hard time with how the suspect is dealt with. Not that I didn’t think there should be justice served, but my heart always ached for those who don’t know Jesus – their actions being a reflection of that.

I was always told that I would feel differently if it happened to me. But as it’s happened to my own father, I think I still feel the same. There has been anger, sadness, grief, and confusion. And part of me wishes I could despise the man who did this to my father. But I can’t get any part of my heart to hate him.

All I can find is myself hoping and praying for this man to truly know Jesus. I thought this might change if the man continued to live. But when I heard the news that he was in stable condition, part of me was relieved. My prayer is that someday down the road, I’d get to spend some time with the man who shot my father, not to scream at him, not to yell at him, not to scold him. Simply to tell him about Jesus.”

It’s kind of hard being shamed by a teenager, but that’s kind of how I felt listening to her. Because my first thought in that situation would NOT be, “Wow, this man really needs Jesus.” … But whether or not that’s my FIRST thought, it should be where I get to really quickly, because Christ has forgiven me so much. And it isn’t. When I get there, it’s grudgingly at best.

Several times Jesus commands us to forgive others. In Matthew 6 He says,  “If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” He told the parable of the servant who had his huge debt forgiven, then wouldn’t forgive the much smaller debt owed to him, and Jesus said that if we don’t forgive those who hurt us, God won’t forgive us.

I think we kind of file commands like that away as something Jesus was setting a goal for, but doesn’t really expect, because we think we can’t really do it. But He does; and we can. This young woman shows us it’s possible. A man killed her father, and she wants to be able to share Jesus with him. That kind of attitude only comes when you’re walking close to Christ—moment-by-moment, day-by-day. It’s not easy; it goes against our flawed human nature. But it is doable, with God’s help.

And in this season of Lent, as we look to the sacrifice that Jesus made—and the forgiveness that He offers, we want to have Jesus develop that kind of grace-filled, forgiving heart in us.

So in our personal prayer times today, let’s ask the Lord to work on us, that we would ALL have hearts of forgiveness like this young lady. And my prayer is also that at some point she gets her wish, and gets to share Christ with her father’s killer. Because God can do amazing things when we forgive.

“Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee. When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.” Luke 4:14, 16-17

As we celebrate the season of Lent, looking ahead to the incredible event of Christ’s resurrection, we can fall into thinking that it’s the huge, mountaintop experiences in life that God uses to do His best work. And when we look at things that way, we miss out on the bulk of the situations God uses to touch our lives most profoundly.

When we look at the most impactful encounters Jesus had with people, most of them seemed to take place in the most ordinary of circumstances. When Jesus stood up to read Scripture at his hometown synagogue, He did what countless other teachers had done, week after week for centuries. But it was in an ordinary moment like this that He chose to announce His identity as the Messiah publicly.

Some of the most profound moments of Jesus’ ministry were ordinary, run-of-the-mill moments that became so much more because of Him: Fishing trips, stops to get water at a well, and walks through town became opportunities for people’s lives to be changed.

And God still works in those moments today. A moment comforting a friend when she’s hurting; a hospital stay that has you interacting with hospital staff and roommates; a conversation in an elevator. My wife met a woman in the church parking lot recently that led to coffee, and a conversation that allowed her to direct someone to Celebrate Recovery in the city she was moving to. She’s now involved there and growing.

Mountaintop experiences are nice, but it’s those ordinary moments God seems to love to use most often.

As you pray today, ask God to help you see and take advantage of the opportunities He places before you in the seemingly ordinary moments of your day.

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil…….. When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.” Luke 4:1-2, 13 (NIV)

I read recently Max Lucado pointing out that this passage says that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted—to be tested. It’s interesting that this season of Jesus’ life was something He was led to. And His temptation—His spiritual testing—came as He was fasting for 40 days, so His physical strength was diminishing every day. Fortunately, He passed the test.

When I was in school, there were no “do overs” on tests. The score you got was the score you got. In the years that I umpired youth and High School Baseball, the trainers we had always went through the test after it was graded, and discussed the questions people missed. And if those who had failed re-tested and passed, they were still allowed to work, because the point was to make sure everyone was fully prepared. They weren’t as concerned with people knowing it all the first time as they were with helping them get to where they needed to be.

When we’re tempted, not only do we have God’s Spirit to guide us, but we also have His promise that He will never let you be tempted beyond your ability to resist, and He will always provide an open door to say no. It’s up to us to take that exit. So we never face the test alone. And because of Christ, when we fail, we can repent, and as far as God is concerned, our slate is clean. One failure isn’t the end.

As you pray today, thank God for the help He gives us when we’re tempted, and for the forgiveness HE makes available when we fail the test. Examine the areas of your life where you stumble most often, and ask for His help to take advantage of the help He offers when those temptations present themselves again.