Have You Wasted Your Life?

What have you wasted in your life? Opportunities? Possessions? Love? Join Pastor Tim Hartwig today as he tells us the amazing truth about God's desire for your life.

Luke 15:11-32

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A man had two sons, the younger one came to him one day and said “father give me my share of your estate.” So the father divided up his estate and gave the younger son his share. The son, a few days later, packed up all of his father’s possessions that he had been given and set off to a distant land. There he wasted all that the father had given him.

A famine came, he was without money and food, he was feeding pigs and actually wanted to eat the food that the pigs were eating. In his hardship he realized what he had done. He realized that he had wasted what his father had given him and that he was better off to return as a slave to his father. So he headed out towards home. His father was watching for him and when he saw the son coming he ran out and embraced and hugged him and received him back home.

That story is a picture of us and of God. Maybe when you look at your life you can see the things that you have wasted, the opportunities, the possessions, the love of those around you. You can see how you have not lived the way that your father would have you live. Maybe you feel sad because of that.

Maybe also God has used hardships to wake you up just like the son in the story.

God’s desire is that you would return to him. He is waiting for you, he is watching, and wants to run and embrace you. So leave your life of sin and come back to the Father.

Change your mind about how you were living and seek the father’s love. He has it for you and he’s proven it because he sent his true son to live and die in your place so that you could be forgiven. Everything that you have wasted, every sin that you have committed, has been taken away in Jesus. Because of Jesus the Father wants to embrace you.

So come to him. Come to him and receive his love. Amen.

Timothy Hartwig
Timothy Hartwig

Tim Hartwig is currently serving as President of the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary.

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