Ideas about Repentance
(Study 4 of 5)
Today's Three-minute Bible Study
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Title: Ideas about Repentance - Part
4 ------------------------- Date: 11/04/1999
Keywords: "repentance" "sinner"
Welcome to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand strong in the
face of sexual temptation.
This is part four in a five part study.
Click the number to see other studies in this series: ---1---2---3---5---.
Passage: Luke
15:11-24*
11. Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons.
12. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of
the estate.' So he divided his property between them.
13. "Not long after that, 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 men 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 men.'
20. So he got up and went to his father. "But while he was
still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to
his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
21. "The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven
and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
22. "But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the
best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
23. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and
celebrate.
24. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost
and is found.' So they began to celebrate.
Question
Why did the son return home -- change of heart or change of
circumstances?
Practical help
Did God prompt the Prodigal Son to return home?
Consider the pattern of the two stories that preceded the account of
the son in Luke chapter 15.
In the earlier stories, a lost sheep and coin were sought and found
by their owners, who celebrated the recoveries with parties. Jesus hints the tales are
based on a heavenly pattern of rescue, repentance and rejoicing.
In the case of the Prodigal Son, the repentance and rejoicing by the
son and father respectively are clear.
But a rescue? Can one be assumed because such is the pattern with
the sheep and coin?
The question puts a new light on the son's misfortunes in the
foreign land. Were they ordained to rescue him back to his senses?
The pattern in the sheep and coin stories suggests that some rescue
-- and a vigorous one -- was under way.
This is good news for those of us struggling with porn. Far from
rejecting us, God is rescuing us, perhaps using earthly circumstances to woo our
repentance.
Are circumstances in your life telling you to repent? Consider them to be God's ways of
rescuing you from smut.
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*Scriptures are from The Holy Bible: New International Version © Copyright 1973,
1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved.