Oh dear God we ask of your favour
Come and sweep through this place,
Oh we desire you!
I just wanna be with you, be where you are,
Dwell in your presence, O God.
Oh I wanna walk with you!

C: And I will climb this mountain
And I step off the shore
And I have chosen to follow,
Be by your side forevermore!

Tell me what you want me to do Lord God
Tell me what you want for my life
It’s yours, oh God, it’s yours!

Do your will!
Have your way!
Be Lord God in this place!
Oh I want your will to be done!

C: And I will climb this mountain
And I step off the shore
And I have chosen to follow,
Be by your side forevermore!


G’day mates! Wonder what OSIM stands for? Oh Shit It’s Monday! Ok lame, bad Monday joke. Hahaha well seriously, I used to be sceptical about Monday because my life was routinely boring. But after I made a conviction to live my life as consistently as possible, keeping God in focus throughout, Monday is no longer boring! I pray that you will also be committed to keeping your life pure and holy, pleasing unto the eyes of the Lord.

And so, today being Monday, the After-Sunday-Syndrome is creeping back, and here’s a good recipe to kick out! This week in ASS, we focus on arguably the most popular parable Jesus told: The Parable of the Prodigal (Lost in some versions) Son.

Luke 14: 11 – 32 depicts this immensely popular parable, the context being Jesus sharing parables in the presence of the Pharisees and teachers of the law. It is notable that ‘sinners’ were present during this point of sharing, and Jesus was under scrutiny for ‘welcoming sinners and eating with them’.

I don’t have to repeat the story because you know it (unless you were living in Mars) but essentially, the parable has three main parts:

1.The son takes his father’s money
2.The son realises his stupidity and returns
3.Father welcomes him home.

Of course there are other parts that are equally worth mentioning but due to length constraints, let’s keep it to these few.

Let’s tackle one at a time.

~The son takes his father’s money.

I think if I go up to my father and ask for my share of the family’s wealth, I’ll probably get smacked in the head. My point is no one in the right frame of mind would ask his daddy for that kind of money. Not even during that time. It was deemed as rude and suggestive of one’s father’s impending demise.

This reminds me that sometimes when we ask God for things we need, we ask Him to provide for EVERYTHING we want without realising that what we ask from Him is rude. It’s easy for us to fall into this trap, because we feel that we don’t have everything that we want. So we tend to ‘go shopping with God’.

‘Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered all his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.’

Sounds familiar right? Many times we don’t appreciate the grace God gives us and distant ourselves away from Him, thinking we know it all. We’re not God-focused and we don’t allow Him to increase but allow ourselves to increase. Making things worse, when something bad hits us hard, we clamp up even more, blaming God, blaming everyone but us. I’m sure you’ve gone through this before. I did.

~ The son realises his stupidity and returns
Ever had that feeling that you know you’re doing something bad and foolish but still KEEP doing it? I struggle with that too. Let me share a slice of how this relates to me. In Sec 2, I used to like to be nasty with my language in school. I couldn’t control myself. Until one day, I heard myself and I wondered: “Why am I speaking like this?!” God challenged me to stop and within a month I was completely clean. Praise Him!

I think the worse thing to do is to sin and try and cover it up, especially when you’re in church. You put on that goody-too-shoes image that you often hide behind. Don’t do that! If you cannot realise what you are doing, the best thing to do is to pray Psalms 139.

When you realise that whatever you are doing is wrong, you’re on the right path to repent. But repenting isn’t easy work. I had to put in a lot of hard work during that month, and many times I stumbled. But thank God, I never gave up and I repented of my sin.

Need I say more, brother?

~Father welcomes him home.
Our God is an amazing God. When you are sinning, He still says, “My son, I died for you. I have forgiven you of your sins.” When we turn back to Him and take the first step, He takes a thousand more towards us. There is no better comfort than to reside in God.

In the parable, the father saw his forlorn son walking toward the house and ran to him. He put a ring (this is significant because a ring on one’s finger meant power) and the best robe on him. Similarly, when we take a step back to God, He places a ring on us, calling us His own.


Reflection:
Read Psalms 139. Have we been running away from God, not putting our God-given talents into good use for His kingdom?


isaac
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