Thread by @lohwis

Dear Christian,
We’re talking about the lost sheep, coin and son (prodigal) in a way you most likely haven’t seen it. Rooted in the depth of your identity in Christ. If you’ve been lost for sometime and confused within your Christian journey, you’re in the right place.
Luke 15
🪡

2 months ago, I misplaced my iPad pencil, I knew it was in my room, somewhere around the bed I sleep on everyday, I even attempted to look underneath (just touch the floor without looking) but I didn’t find it,
I carried on because I COULD DO WITHOUT IT.

Last week, my bottle cover rolled under my bed and I had to really bend and look to pick it up and there was my pencil closer than even the cover. The Holy Spirit used that to teach me that the effort you put on something to be found is dependent on two things.

Its value and the value you have of the item.
Jesus in Luke 15 gave us 3 examples to show us 3 dimensions of value.
In V4, speaking on the lost sheep, Jesus asked “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.

Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”

Now, I’m not a shepherd so my answer is NO!
If I have 99 sheep and one goes missing, the common sense thing to do is to protect the rest. What are the odds I will even find it?

If I was the sheep’s mother, the story is entirely different or even a shepherd, I would have more value for its life. Prioritizing the search for one over the safety of 99 does not add up. Is the sheep valuable? Yes! Do I value it more than a total of 99 sheep? NO

Same thing with the woman and the coin. If I have $1000 best believe I’m not lighting a torch to sweep for $10.
Now here’s where it starts getting interesting.
Like Jesus used one unit to exemplify a whole,
Without a sheep, the shepherd looses his identity.

Without money, the woman won’t be able to afford certain necessities.
One way or another, the things that were lost affected the identity of the people that lost them.
These things were incoherent, incapable of defending themselves like the sheep depending on the shepherd.

Which is why the father and the prodigal son was different!
There was a switch because the dynamics had changed.
There was a value match!
We don’t see the father waiting for sheep to return. Matter of fact he killed a calf.
Neither do we see the shepherd going to look for a man.

For the same reason the shepherd can lose his identity as a shepherd without a sheep he didn’t create,
Is the same reason the prodigal son loses his identity without his father and not the father losing his identity because the father is the creator, HIS IDENTITY IS ESTABLISHED.

Things, animals, jobs can’t give us our true identity. Only fickle/ temporary identities.
Reason why the father had to wait because his son is not like a sheep or a thing! His son is coherent!. So he can only wait for him to get to the realization that in me is your true identity

In V17, the bible records
“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!”
After he had spent money on “things”, in V14b “he began to be in need.”

Coins don’t have need and sheep, not too much but there is something that a life out of your true identity in Christ does to you!
The devil first camouflages it to make you feel like you’re actually living. Then he strips you bare to the lowest you start frolicking with pigs.

The same pigs Jesus said in Mtt 7:6 that you shouldn’t give your pearls to, that’s where the devil keeps you.
You need to do two things in this order:
1. Understand the value of your father.
2. Understand your value/worth

You’ve been trying to do No 2 alone, how’s that going?

For the son to be able to return, he had to understand the value of his father in V17- “How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!”

To those who were once with the father and became overfamiliar, this is mostly for you.

You thought you were missing something the world had to offer only to realize it was all a lie.
Oh, come home.
In V20 the bible records “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,”

Immediately the prodigal son remembered his father’s value, automatically, he connected with his identity.
Your father has hired servants, he has put provisions for you to navigate life seamlessly!
Why are you on a self imposed famine and starving?

Your father said to tell you he’s waiting. He’s ready to receive you back.
He’s behind the door knocking.
You’re not too far gone because he never left so he’s not far also. Contrary to what you thought, He was around that’s why he saw you’re yearning to return a long time ago.

How much do you value your creator?
Do you realize there’s a lot to lose?
Like the shepherd values the sheep and the woman her coin, is your identity not valuable enough?

Come home 🫂
🤍&💡