Shavuot or Pentecost is one of the most important feasts and times of our Judeo-Christian faith.

Pentecost is the timeframe where the Torah was given to Moses on top of Mount Sinai and years later, is also the same timeframe where the promise of the Holy Spirit was released in the upper room in Acts 2. Pentecost is a time where the nation and kingdom of God is birthed.

God is birthing something new again.

Another Move of God

In this Pentecost season, expect these seven prophetic promises to be fulfilled:

1. Peace upon Israel. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: May they prosper who love you!” (Ps. 122:6).

Nearly every year around this Pentecost season, we see something significant take place in the Holy Land. This is not a coincidence but has to do with God’s sovereign timeline of appointed feasts and seasons.

Even in this time of turmoil and crisis among Israel and the surrounding nations, expect peace to come upon Jerusalem! Expect a ceasefire and a demolishing of all enemy forces!

2. Promotions in the Spirit. “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like a mighty rushing wind came from heaven, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:1-2).

After a period of 10 days from Christ’s ascension and prophecy of promise, there was only 120 who remained in the upper room in Jerusalem out of the initial 500 who had seen and heard.

God is promoting you in the Spirit to receive what you’ve paid the price for. Those who have pressed through and pushed past the attacks will gain double favor and honor!

3. Positions of authority. Moses was called up to Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, the Law of God, and Peter stood up amongst the crowd and preached with authority before all.

In this Pentecost season, God is anointing certain individuals and ministries to rise up with a new seat of authority and power.

4. Prayers accelerated. “There appeared to them tongues as of fire, being distributed and resting on each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to speak” (Acts 2:3-4).

Pentecost is a time of awakening and renewal. The Holy Spirit baptized the Acts Church to speak in heavenly languages.

Your prayers will be effectual and will accelerate God’s kingdom purposes.

5. Power to dismantle demonic forces. “Then those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day about three thousand souls were added to them” (Acts 2:41).

On the day of Pentecost, 3,000 souls were swept into God’s kingdom from the blindness and the spirit of the age.

Pentecost is the promise of God’s might and power that lives within each and every individual, to dismantle and disrupt all evil forces that surround you.

6. Purity of God’s purposes. The baptism of the fire of the Holy Spirit stands for God’s purity and holiness. God is purifying the church from having mere good religious services to becoming a glorious bride of power and beauty.

God is purifying His people from false alignments, connections and idolatrous religious forms and traditions.

7. Prosperity of God’s people. Every biblical feast has to do with harvest. It is a time of celebration and feasting on God’s abundance, goodness and provision.

This Pentecost season will bless and benefit the people of God with a long and overdue harvest of prosperity and jubilee joy! {eoa}

Dr. Ben Lim is the senior pastor of Open Heavens World, which currently oversees three church plants in Southern California. He is a dynamic Millennial preacher who has traveled to nearly 50 countries in just the past 10 years. He spent his earlier years in the mission fields of Asia and Southeast Asia, preaching the gospel to unreached people groups. He is the CEO of Ben Lim Global and Ben Lim Ministries. His ministry is accompanied with notable signs, wonders and miracles. You can listen to his CPN podcast End Times’ Oracle.

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It’s difficult to imagine this issue would rear its ugly head in any Bible-believing church—especially a Pentecostal one—but there is a major atrocity I believe tragically has infiltrated many sanctuaries across our great country.

The best words I can use to describe this problem is the “Christian left.”

There are a lot of Christians out there that are espousing things I don’t really believe add up to the Word of God. And sometimes, it’s hard to understand.

That’s why I decided to bring Lucas Miles back on to my Strang Report podcast. The last time I had him on, we talked about how liberal thought has hijacked the church in recent years. We discussed how the influence of our culture and other theologies and beliefs is sparking division within the church. It’s the definitive work of the enemy, and it’s the exact opposite of what God wants when He comes back soon for His bride.

The author of The Christian Left and an ordained pastor with more than 20 years of ministry experience, Miles says the church has fallen into compromise in many, many ways and, in a lot of cases, believers aren’t even aware of it. That is exactly why he wrote the book.

“This is a book that I hope will correct a problem in the church,” Miles told me on my podcast. “And in order to really correct it in the right way, I had to address some of the individuals that are perhaps creating these problems in the church, which certainly puts a little bit of a target on my back.

“I have been preaching for 20-plus years, and at the same church for 17 of those years. I’ve seen a rising, what the New York Times is calling ‘liberal Christianity,’ and I’m seeing very few people brave enough to address it. I really felt like the Lord prompted my heart and He asked me, ‘do you want to undertake this?’ I believe God give us a choice sometimes. It is a challenging topic, but I didn’t want to miss what God has for me, so I took it on.”

Miles says that there has been a “leftward drift” in the church for many years. It’s just been so gradual and subtle that many people have not noticed it.

There are now a lot of believers that refer to themselves as “evangelical Democrats,” or so the stickers on the back bumper of their cars say. But there are a lot of Republicans that are liberal, too. We’re not just talking about liberal politics; we’re talking about attitudes within the church.

So, what is the definition of the term “wokeism?” Miles says this:

“There was a definition I used in my book, and I pulled it from a book called Woke Christians. The author refers to Christians who embrace sort o a pro-choice position on abortion, as well as gay marriage, and also things like BLM. Beyond that, wokeism is really the recognition or consciousness of heightened political correctness as well as a consciousness of an oppressed society.

“I think it’s really a false consciousness of an oppressed society. But it frames a lot of how the woke community operates because they see themselves and many of those around them in some sort of victim state. It really divides society into groups—the oppressed and the oppressor—and anybody that doesn’t look like you is most likely the oppressor. As a woke Christian or individual, you are the oppressed. It’s rather pessimistic because it doesn’t really give any opportunity for redemption or forgiveness.”

For more of my fascinating interview with Lucas Miles, listen to the entire episode of the Strang Report at this link. Be sure to subscribe to the Strang Report on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform for more words that will inspire and challenge you in the power of the Holy Spirit. {eoa}

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Having grown up in the Muslim-dominated country of Egypt, Michael Youssef knows exactly what it’s like to face oppression for his beliefs and to defend his faith.

However, it’s something that, decades later, the founder of Leading the Way ministry and founding pastor of The Church of the Apostles in Atlanta never dreamed he be forced to draw upon while living in the United States of America. Yet here he is, like many other Christians in this country, battling a presidential administration that is becoming more and more hostile the gospel of Jesus Christ by the day.

His newest book, Hope for This Present Crisis: The Seven-Step Path to Restoring a World Gone Mad (Charisma House, 2021), explains how believers can combat this siege from within the U.S. It provides a diagnosis of the insanity of the current culture in America and a prescription to the moral decay that has beset our country.

“Growing up in a sea of a Muslim world, you kind of learn to anticipate persecution,” Youssef told Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of Greenelines on the Charisma Podcast Network. “You grow up strong because you are instructed in the home, you’re instructed in the church, and you know what it is like to be a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and to be ready to defend or even die for your faith.

“So, for the first 18 years of my life, that really gave me a foundation that I never knew some 55 years later I would have to draw upon. Because we are in the U.S., I never thought I’d see the day where Christians would be persecuted. Every religion, every thought, every philosophy is tolerated except the Christian faith.

“The former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, a friend of mine, said to me, ‘Do you think God has a sense of humor, bringing a man from Egypt to be a thorn in the side of liberal evangelicals?’ I’m happy to be that. God, in His mercy and grace and favor, gave me the pleasure and joy of planting our church in George 34 years ago. We just kept growing, and ever since the opening day, I will tell you that I have not changed my commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am becoming stronger. The older I get, rather than softening and weakening, I am now more committed to the preaching the uncompromised truth, the infallible Word of God.”

For more about Youssef and his attack on today’s cancel culture, listen to the entire episode here, and subscribe to Greenelines on your favorite podcast platform for more inspiring stories like this one. Order Hope for This Present Crisis to discover ways you can follow Youssef’s example and stand up for your faith in the face of persecution. {eoa}.

It seems there are not many places remaining in society that have not been infiltrated by politics. Political discourse is no longer relegated to the domain of cable news. Rather, politics has become integrated into American life in a way that seemingly touches everything—sports and entertainment, corporate America and their products, college campuses and elementary schools and even the church. In fact, the words “church politics” have taken on a whole new meaning. Many people are not only choosing their church according to its views on their personal political priorities but also choose to leave churches for the same reason. Some are concerned their pastor isn’t “God and Country” enough, and others find their leaders aren’t woke enough.

This recent immersion into the political waters has produced an awakening of biblical proportions for the church across America. The only problem is it’s a natural, political awakening, not a spiritual awakening. I believe this last election illustrated it well. I witnessed more Christians passionate about a president and wanting to fight for “our country” than I saw passionate for Christ and fighting for souls. I believe God wanted to birth a revival, a spiritual awakening, and the church miscarried into a political movement.

Should the church, as individual believers, be involved in politics? I believe they can and should be involved. But we cannot be those who view the church through the lens of politics. We must view politics through the lens of the kingdom. Philippians 1:27a (NLT) says “Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ.” We are citizens of a heavenly kingdom before we are citizens of an American nation. The question is not whether what we do or say is constitutional, but rather, whether or not it is worthy of the Good News. In the last part of that verse, we are reminded what it is we are supposed to be fighting for: “I will know that you are standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the Good News.” What should the relationship between the church and politics look like? Find out in this powerful episode of From Behind the Veil on the Charisma Podcast Network. {eoa}

HG Strickland has planted churches, launched ministries and has raised up leaders across denominational lines for the past 25 years. In fulfilling that call, God has taken him far beyond traditional ministry and church leadership to lead charities, foundations, businesses and even train government leaders on Capitol Hill to operate in their identity and purpose. HG currently serves as a founding pastor of Kingdom Life Ministries DC, a church planted a couple of blocks from the White House. Learn more about Envoy at .

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Here in the United States, we have celebrations during the month of May. Are you ready to celebrate Memorial Day? When we visit cemeteries this time of year, there are flags that different people and organizations have put up in honor of those who have given their lives to win us the freedom we enjoy and prayerfully cherish. Have you ever given thought to what you are free to do in your daily life that someone was willing to die for? That alone is worth meditating on and thanking the Lord for those blessings. Let us keep our governmental leaders in our prayers that they fear the Lord and make wise, God-honoring decisions for all people.

There is a far greater freedom for all people. Jesus won that for us. Nearly 2,000 years ago, Jesus laid down His life to pay our sin debt in full. For those who choose to make Jesus their Lord and Savior, we have the freedom from guilt and condemnation. There is a joy in knowing God removes our sins as far as the east is from the west. He remembers our sins no more. Now, that is a freedom to celebrate every day! Praise the Lord! Can we live out that freedom in praising and magnifying the Lord every day? Can we recommend Jesus to others? We are blessed to be a blessing!

I want to extend my thanks to those who serve in the military. Thank you for your service and in defending our nation. For those of you who may have lost a loved one and have moments of grief in your heart, it is my prayer that Christian friends and family will join around you to comfort you. Please keep the good memories in your precious mind. I look forward to the day where I get to see my loved ones in heaven. Getting excited about seeing our loving and gracious Father very soon should inspire us to share Jesus in our daily lives. Lord, we pray for open doors and the wisdom of how to speak and act to share your love with others.

We have been digging into two of my books, Heaven Bound and Walking the Talk. I would like to invite you to spend some time with me in Bible Study. We will be diving into sharing Jesus with those around us as well as growing with the Lord. You can read along and listen to my recent episode of Loved Always on the Charisma Podcast Network. My website, , has links to purchase each book. Bring along your Bible as it is the foundation for any book I write to help believers. There are countless Scriptures in these books. We will only be able to touch the surface within this framework. I would like to make sure you have great resources that help you in your journey with the great God we love, serve and worship.

Please enjoy the verse of the day or leave a prayer request at . {eoa}

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Don’t seek a second opinion to tell you what you want to hear.

When I see the doctor for physicals or other reasons, if the doctor says everything is OK, I respond: “Awesome! See you next time!” This is interesting. Why don’t I get a second opinion when I receive good news? Maybe I’m afraid the second doctor might find something that was missed, so it’s just best to stay away.

Many people in the church today love to hear a “good diagnosis.” People don’t feel the need to seek out someone else when preachers tell us things we want to hear. We walk away feeling good about ourselves from these messages, with an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. There’s nothing wrong with feeling positive, but the problem arises when the tables turn, and we hear messages about sin or something that is trying to motivate us to change our behavior. What is our response to that?

Many times with a tough message from either a preacher or the Bible directly, we get what I call “dissociative listening.” We hear but do not apply the truth to ourselves, or we think of who else to which it might apply. We might nudge our spouse or think of a friend who gossiped about us and wish they were there to hear the message.

Jesus said in Mark 2:17 that He has not come to call the righteous but sinners. I almost feel like Jesus is referring to the righteous here with sarcasm. The Pharisees at the time could not understand why Jesus was with the tax collectors and other sinners. These “sinners” were actually willing to listen to Jesus. The Pharisees were too busy in their self-righteousness to realize that they needed a Savior too!

The problem with getting a “second opinion” when it comes to God is there will always be someone else out there who will tell you what you want to hear. If you seek truth, you will find it. Unfortunately, if you seek what your ears want to hear, you will find that as well.

The Bible warns of this in 2 Timothy 4:2-3: “Preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with all patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine, but they will gather to themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires, having itching ears.”

I would encourage you that the next time you hear a word or read a Bible verse that “stings” a little … or a lot … don’t ignore it. The Holy Spirit is at work in you. If you need to change something, change it. If you need to repent about something, repent. God will lovingly call out sin in our lives in order for us to grow in Him. He wants to cut out the sin from our flesh, so we can be holy before Him. Jesus will see us through this process; after all, He is the great physician!

In this episode of Everyday Discernment on the Charisma Podcast Network, I talk to Dr. Sam Kojoglanian. He is an author and heart doctor known as the Mender of Hearts. He uses his God-given skills to practice with passion, heal with compassion and inspire his patients to live healthier and stronger lives. You too will be inspired after listening to his message in this episode! {eoa}

Tim Ferrara has grown up in the church and has held various leadership positions both in business and in the church. Tim is currently the executive pastor at LifePoint Church in Arizona. He has a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Arizona State University along with a MBA from University of Phoenix. He has had a career in business management for over 20 years and has worked as faculty for two different colleges.

Tim started the ministry of Discerning Dad as a way to write and encourage Christians to grow in discernment and make better decisions that honor God. He has a book called Everyday Discernment: The Importance of Spirit-Led Decision Making as well as multiple YouVersion Bible Plans. Tim lives with his wife, Jamie, and their two children in Arizona.

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Envision an otherworldly scene where a massive tree is loaded with an abundance of fruit, and each individual fruit represents a real-life Christian on the planet today. Every single Christian alive today is represented by the fruit. Well-known Christian leaders, singers, musicians, teachers, prophets, evangelists, pastors, apostles, laymen, children, workplace Christians, everyday Christians—each and every Christian is on the tree and recognized by name. Then imagine God sending His mightiest hosts to violently shake the tree, much like machines shake trees today to harvest fruit. As you observe this scene, you see tremendous numbers of fruit falling from the tree to a massive tarp-like ground covering intended to gather all that falls from the tree. Naturally, only those ripe fall to the ground.

I suspect you think all that is harvested through the shaking are fruit that is desirable and will be used for kingdom good. But what if the fruit that could not be shaken—the fruit that remained on the tree—is the better fruit because it’s still securely attached to the source of life the tree offers? I believe this is a perfect illustration of what Christians around the world are experiencing today, and have been since early 2020.

I asked you to imagine this as an illustration of how we have been far too quick to claim understanding of what God is doing, and as a result, we’ve gotten it wrong.

Read the rest of this article at and listen to Faith to Live By with Pamela Christian on the Charisma Podcast Network, where each week I seek to help us discern the times and know how God would have us respond so His kingdom will is done on earth as it is in heaven. {eoa}

Pamela Christian is an award-winning author, speaker and media host. The ordained international minister holds an honorary doctorate of divinity from HSBN International School of Ministry and is certified in apologetics from Biola University. She is a member of the Bethel Leaders Network and hosts the podcast, Faith to Live By, on the Charisma Podcast Network. To learn more, visit .

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Author’s Note: This article is also available in video format on YouTube in English here and in Spanish here, and in audio format on The Alberino Analysis on Charisma Podcast Network.

In the first installment of this series, I would like for us to contemplate our place within the universe from a theological perspective—that is to say, within context of the biblical narrative.

This contemplation is important for Christians living in our time considering the UFO controversy is over. As you have noticed, the Pentagon has been rolling out a kind of soft disclosure regarding the reality of UFOs, which is no longer a topic relegated to the realm of conspiracy theory but a stone cold fact now frequently appearing in the headlines of the New York Times and other major news outlets. Scientists are also beginning to openly acknowledge the UFO reality. Baylor University astrophysicist and Pentagon consultant Eric Davis recently made the astonishing claim that he had personally examined exotic materials from a UFO crash retrieval which he maintains could not have been manufactured by human beings. Based on his analysis of said materials, Davis denominates UFOs in his Defense Department briefings as “off-world vehicles not made on this earth.” It is of interest to note that the Pentagon has not refuted Davis’s claims. We will discuss the topic of UFOs and alien abductions at length in a later installment of this series.

In light of the Pentagon’s ongoing disclosures, Christians can no longer afford to ignore the UFO reality or hand-wave it away as a purely supernatural phenomenon. The nuts-and-bolts corporeality of UFOs demands a better explanation. In order to arrive at such an explanation, it is imperative that adherents to the biblical narrative immediately disabuse themselves of erroneous perceptions inherited from medieval times.

If we are to properly comprehend our place within the universe, then we must surrender our need to be the center of it. The truth is that man was not conceived with the universe, and the universe was not created for man. We were born into the cosmos, not with it—thrust into the fray of a complex political, societal, and martial conflict involving intelligent agencies of ancient origin.

Many Christians are inadvertently hamstrung with an anthropocentric perspective of the universe. The term anthropocentric means human-centric. In this worldview, if the universe is like a bicycle wheel, mankind is the hub of the wheel where all the spokes connect. Anthropocentrism places man at the center of all things, making him the principal protagonist and primary purpose of the universe. All other sentient beings in the cosmos of created order are ancillary characters in the story of mankind. In other words, everything revolves around us. And this is precisely how the solar system was envisioned in the Middle Ages by Catholics everywhere until the Copernican revolution, which introduced the heliocentric model and dispelled the notion that the earth, and by extension the human race, is at the center of the universe. Although the geocentric model of the solar system has been long discarded, the anthropocentric perspective from which it was derived is still prevalent among Christians as it pertains to questions of theology.

It is often presumed, for example, that the biblical narrative depicts the creation of the universe, the earth and the human race as a simultaneous event that transpired over a period of seven days—as if the universe were created for the earth, and the earth for mankind. This perception exalts the human race as God’s crowning achievement and the reason for which He created the universe. I believe this to be a fatal flaw in the cosmological paradigm of many sincere Christians who simply cannot fathom the universe getting on without us. As we will see later on, the opening scene of Genesis does not, in my opinion, portray the primal creation of the universe and its planetary bodies; rather, it describes the sequential renewal of the earth in the aftermath of utter ruin, which culminates in the creation of Adam who was appointed to govern it. This view removes mankind from the hub of the wheel, so to speak, and makes him an accessory in the story of creation, which was already unfolding for untold eons before he graced the stage.

If we relinquish the anthropocentric perspective and surrender our need to be the center of the universe, we can formulate a much more expansive biblical paradigm that accommodates not only the UFO phenomenon but the existence of other worlds inhabited by nonhuman extraterrestrial beings. As Christians, the first step in this exercise is to determine if the Scriptures support the doctrine of anthropocentrism. Does the biblical narrative convey the notion that mankind is at the center of creation?

Surprisingly, the answer is a resounding no.

Rather than convey an anthropocentric perspective of the universe, the Scriptures unequivocally convey a Christocentric—Christ-centric—perspective. In fact, Christocentrism is a doctrinal pillar of the New Testament. The apostles of Jesus Christ were adamant in portraying Him not only as the center but the very source of the universe and the reason for which it was created. In the first chapter of Colossians, Paul articulates the doctrine with supreme elegance where he writes concerning Christ,

“He is the image of the invisible God and the firstborn of every creature. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they are thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers. All things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Col.1:15-17).

It is essential to recognize that the universe was not only created by him and through him but for him. By making ourselves the center of all things, we supplant the Son of God, who is not only the primal source of the universe but its primary purpose.

In Romans 11, Paul reiterates the doctrine to the church in Rome, where he declares,

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever!” (Rom. 11:36).

Christ is the first cause, the initial singularity, and the intrinsic purpose of the universe. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. The universe was not made for the earth, and the earth was not made for man. It was all made for Jesus, the firstborn and beloved Son of the Father—the apple of his eye.

From the Christocentric perspective we may disassociate the creation of the universe with the creation of mankind, as man was not its purpose. This perspective opens up a whole new panorama of pre-Adamic history and allows us to contemplate a scenario in which mankind is a latecomer to the stage in the theater of the universe and a secondary character in the story of creation—a story that was not written for us, but for Christ.

The Christocentric perspective will serve to inform and expand our paradigm as we engage some of the most fascinating and controversial subjects of the biblical narrative in forthcoming articles.

If you wish to further explore the topics featured in this article, I encourage you to get my book, Birthright: The Coming Posthuman Apocalypse and the Usurpation of Adam’s Dominion on Planet Earth. {eoa}

Known as a modern-day Indiana Jones, Timothy Alberino is a writer, explorer and filmmaker whose inquisitive mind and intrepid spirit have led him all over the earth in search of lost cities, lost civilizations, hidden treasures and legendary creatures. His appetite for adventure was manifest at the age of 18 when he dropped out of high school in Cleveland, Ohio, and moved to the Amazon jungle in Peru. Alberino is an accomplished autodidact and scholarly researcher. After years of rigorous study, he has garnered an expansive knowledge base that allows him to dissertate with authority on a wide variety of topics.

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The son—we’ll call him Seth—broke every custom and tradition.

Weary of all the hard work, annoyed at his controlling elder brother and resentful that most of the land and livestock would one day belong to his brother, he made a defiant decision. This decision was followed by a series of even more radical choices.

Radical Choice No. 1

Seth went to his father and demanded all of his inheritance—now!

This was unheard of! He was rejecting his subordinate place, as the younger son, in the inheritance and management of the family estate. But worse, it said to his father: “I want you dead. I want my inheritance now.”

Radical Choice No. 2

The father, surely heartbroken, had an even more radical response. He agreed to his son’s demands. Surely he had to sell land and livestock to give him the cash equivalent of his portion.

Hopefully with a thank you and a goodbye kiss, but probably not, Seth headed off to the far land. Soon he gathered many friends to join in his riotous living. His generosity was greatly appreciated—until his wealth ran out. And so did his companions.

Radical Choice No. 3

Cold and hungry, Seth finally found work feeding pigs. In the muck and slime, he came to his senses:

“My father’s servants are living better than I am. They have food, clothing and shelter. I will go home, though in great shame. Maybe my father will let me be one of his servants.” (See Luke 15:17.)

As he made the long journey home, Seth played over and over in his mind: “How can I show my shameful face? What will my father say? My brother? The servants? I need to confess, repent and ask forgiveness.”

Radical Choice No. 4

Every evening, Seth’s dad went up to the roof of their home to pray for his wayward son, to look over the horizon to see if he would return. Every night, he went to sleep with deep sadness over the loss of the very loved boy.

Then, one evening, he saw a figure in the distance. The figure was weak, disheveled yet familiar, dragging himself toward the house. And suddenly the father knew—it was his son. He was coming home.

He didn’t stop to think: How dare he think he can come back! What shall I say? How can I punish him? Will I let him stay?

Oh no! He gathered up his robe and ran to him. When he reached him, Seth fell to his knees, seeking to sputter out his apology and request. But his father threw his arms and his robe around him, put his own sandals on his son. He even gave Seth his ring.

His words tumbled out: “My son! My son! You have come home! Oh, how I have mourned for you, prayed for you, waited for you. You are home!”

Seth again tried to ask to take rank in his father’s house as one of the servants. His father would have none of that. He said, “You are my son. You were lost, but now you are found. Let’s celebrate! We will have a party!”

And they did. Just like the angels in heaven celebrate with the Father, Son and Spirit every time one of the lost ones comes home.

It’s called grace.

Grace that is extended to us repeatedly by our Grace-Full Father. Listen to this episode of When You Love a Prodigal with Judy Douglass on the Charisma Podcast Network for more on the Father’s loving grace toward his prodigals. {eoa}

Judy Douglass is a global writer, speaker and encourager. Her most recent book, When You Love a Prodigal, has ignited her new podcast of the same name. She directs Women’s Resources at Cru.

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God is faithful. He is a God who keeps His Word. He is a covenant-keeping God. Deuteronomy 7:9 says, “Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and mercy with them who love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations.”

To be faithful means to be loyal, constant, true and devoted. God does not change. He does not change in His character, love, kindness, fairness or fulfilling His promises to us. God is immutable. 2 Timothy 2:13 says, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny himself.”

Throughout the Bible we see the faithfulness of God. God is a date-setter and promise keeper. He told Noah He would destroy the earth by flood in 120 years. He told Abraham his descendants would be in Egypt as slaves for 400 years. He told the Israelites they would spend 40 years, a year for each day, in the wilderness, and He told Jeremiah the Jews would be in captivity for 70 years in Babylon. Yes, God is faithful. But will Jesus find faith in us when He returns to earth?

Be sure to listen to the Wear Scriptures podcast episode on the Charisma Podcast Network titled God Is Faithful. {eoa}

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