Hello, my friends, Michael Yusuf here, and I just wanted to thank you for connecting with leading the way.

Our entire team is wholly committed to passionately proclaiming uncompromising truth of God's word, and it cannot be done without you.

Learn more about what God has charged us to do around the world by clicking around L-T-W.org. That's L-T-W.org. Thank you and may God

richly bless you as you seek to serve him.

Jesus tells this story about the parodical son.

It's not a parable, it's a story.

But Jesus does not start with the boy.

He does not start there.

He starts with the father.

The focus is on the father.

He started by saying there was a father.

And when Jesus said that, that when the boy returned

home, the father ran to him, you have to understand. You must transform your mind to the point

of understanding the audience to whom Jesus was speaking. Because even today, if I said the father

run, well, a lot of fathers run. But to his audience, to whom he was speaking at the time,

this was the most shocking thing they have ever heard. This is the most horrifying thought. This is an astounding thing that has

never been done. Why? Because running is for the servants. Running is for the slaves. Running is for the despised people. Running is for scared people. Running is not

for a dignified older man. Never, never, never, never. You would see that in the Middle East,

particularly in the time of Jesus. Those who are listening to Jesus tell the story were astounded because the Bible

speaking of God humiliating himself in the sun, taking the form of a servant, die on a criminal

cross, yet he's perfect in every way, then rises again so that every person who

repents of their sins find God runs in the cross.

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