Read Luke 15:11-24.
“For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.” (v. 24).

As heartrending and scary as our experience was (see yesterday’s devotional), it doesn’t compare to the sadness and heartbreak caused by a son who wanders away from God and ruins his life through sinful actions and addictions. Many years ago, the devil deceived a young pastor who showed a lot of promise for ministry, and caused him to leave the pastorate and turn from his faith. His mother, heartbroken, prayed faithfully for him until she died. I know the son of a pastor who, turning away from a call that God had placed upon his heart, set his sights on the wealth of this world. Both of these can be restored!
Jim Cymbala, author of Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, tells about his wayward daughter, Chrissy. She had been expelled from a Bible college, was concealing an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, had completely turned her back on her family, and they did not know where she was. All they and their church could do was pray. But God knew where Chrissy was and how to get her attention. Miraculously, she went home, prayed to victory, and was restored to her family. Today, she and her husband are pastoring a church in Chicago.
Like the prodigal’s father in today’s verse, the Cymbala family rejoiced that the lost one had come home. (SEH)
Let’s keep praying for the prodigals – God can restore them

Read Job 2:3-10.

A Tested Man
"So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord,
and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown" (v. 7).

Sometimes, life doesn’t seem fair! Job has lost his wealth and children, and now God has allowed Satan to attack Job physically. Let’s look closely and see what nuggets of wisdom we can find in this passage today.
God knows what is going on in Job’s life, yet He allows it: painful boils, coupled with the scorn and anger of his wife's rejection, leave Job struggling for relief. Some scholars suggest one of Job’s trials was that Job’s wife was spared. Instead of comforting and ministering to him through his trials, she chose to find fault and tell him to curse God and die. Look at Job’s response to her. Job understood God is sovereign. When his wife scorned him and challenged his belief in God, Job responded courteously, realizing she was also grieving. Job extended to her both compassion and truth. Job's response to affliction demonstrated his faith and spiritual integrity. (LeeAnn Davison)
In the midst of tribulation, stand by me;
in the midst of tribulation, stand by me.
When the hosts of hell assail, and my strength begins to fail,
thou who never lost a battle, stand by me. (stand by me)
--- Charles Albert Tindley

God often chooses to allow things we cannot understand for reasons of His own.

Read Ephesians 2:13-17.

“Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances: for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace” (v. 15). 

Paul seems to be referencing the difference between Jews and Gentiles. They did not look kindly on each other. This animosity was graphically demonstrated in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Usually, what Samaritan would go out of his way to do anything for a Jew? Jesus came to abolish that kind of thinking.

Satan generated that way of viewing others. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, some Europeans viewed Jews with hatred. Men like Hitler and Stalin thought of annihilating the Jewish people. Today, in many parts of the world, Jesus's followers are hated, regardless of whether Jew or Gentile. Some are wrongfully treated, some are persecuted, and some give their lives just because they are followers of Jesus. Jesus taught us to love our fellow man.

When we experience the New Birth, we experience a newness never-before known. The old man is now a new man. Not only is there a change between Jew and Gentile, but skin color or nationality is no longer an issue. Gender is not an issue. Our generation's hatred becomes a love for lost souls when we exchange our old sin-cursed nature for the transforming Divine-Love-filled nature Jesus died to provide for all. (MAH)

Red and yellow, black and white:

All are precious in His sight.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit includes a baptism of Divine Love

Read Jeremiah 2:21-24.

"For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God" (v. 22).

A former Colgate Palmolive soap factory employee relates that although there are newer processes for making soap, the essentials are more or less the same as when made on the farm from soda ash and the lard rendered from a pig. The raw ingredients to make soap are oils – palm oil, coconut oil, or even fish oil; for bar soap, caustic soda or lye from soda ash; and for soft soap, caustic potassium from potash.
These ingredients are boiled in huge vats. After the vats are cooled, and the chemical reaction results are removed, it is necessary to clean the vats, which are heated by huge, coal-fired boilers. The soot must be cleaned from the horizontal six-foot-high pipes leading to the chimney stacks. The unfortunate part of this process is that even though you have a lot of soap available, you can not get clean. At the end of the two weeks, it takes to clean the pipes, the employees have to throw their clothes into the garbage. After many showers, they still don’t look clean. They bare stains that even soft soap won’t clean!
We face the same problem. We have many remedies for cleaning up our lives that have been fabricated by man. We have seminars, AA meetings, NA meetings, self-help books, support groups, and therapy sessions, but even though these methods may give temporary relief, none of them can remove the stain of sin. Only the atoning blood of Jesus Christ can cleanse the stain of sin from the heart and life of a repentant individual who believes in the Son of God for salvation. (Gayle Woods)
Only the atoning blood of Jesus Christ can cleanse the stain of sin.