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Well, welcome back to season four.

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Can you believe it?

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We are in season four and I have to let you know this as much as I enjoyed my

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break over the last two weeks, I missed you.

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I missed connecting with the posture community.

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So I am so excited to be back today.

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So today you and I are going to take a posture of peace by going on a treasure

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hunt, by seeking the Lord and finding him.

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Posture is a short, audible fist bump to remind you God is with you in everything.

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Together, we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture of perfect peace.

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In Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 13, there is a beautiful promise from the Lord.

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He says, you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.

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Another way of reading this, when you search for me with all of yourself.

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So recently during break, I was listening to a teaching by an author and

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speaker named Danny Silk, and he made a comment about the prodigal son,

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about the parable of the prodigal son.

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Now, if you're not familiar with that parable, it's a parable.

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It's a story that Jesus told in Luke chapter 15.

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And if you've never read it, or if it's just been a long time, since you've

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read that story, I would encourage you go ahead and just push pause on this

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episode, if you can, and go spend some time in Luke chapter 15, and then you

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can come back later and listen to the episode if you like, so I'll

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give you a chance to pause.

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You know, I've heard a lot of great teachings over the years on

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the parable of the prodigal son.

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Now, most of the teachings that I've heard have focused on the prodigal son.

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And then some teachings I've heard have actually focused on the brother that

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you read about in the parable.

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But Danny made a different observation and it really captivated me and I've

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been staring on it ever since.

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I mean, here I am sharing it with you.

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So obviously it has greatly affected me, but what he said, and of course

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I'm, I'm paraphrasing just a little bit, cause I don't have his direct

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quote in front of me, but he said.

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The parable, it's not a story about the prodigal son or his brother.

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It's a story about a superstar father.

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Now, I think the reason that his observation captivated me so much, one

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of the reasons I think is, I believe it's true, what he said, I go back and

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I read Luke 15 and I see it with fresh eyes, but his observation, it stirred

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in me again, this great awareness of the nature of God.

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You know, it's so like my old dead self to read scripture and solely

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focus on my old dead self, to identify as the prodigal son or the brother,

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and then just get stuck in the muck of the injustice and the bad behavior

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and the sin, and then totally miss the point.

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What if the point of Jesus sharing that story and all the stories that

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you'll find in Luke 15, cause there's more than just the prodigal son's

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parable, what if his point was not to say, this is what you're like.

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What if his point was to say, this is what our father is like, this is what

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I'm like, and oh, by the way, the father and I, we are making you into our likeness.

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This has been our primary purpose since the beginning.

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Just check out Genesis 1.26.

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You know, I used to waste a lot of time, a lot of my mental capacity, a lot of my

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emotion on seeking ways to improve myself, seeking answers to my problems,

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seeking answers to other people's problems, seeking a roadmap to success,

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to being a good Christian, but all that seeking only led me back to myself.

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So these days, you know, I'm learning and practicing seeking the Lord.

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You know, for example, when I read scripture, I'm seeking out who he is,

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his nature, his ways, his perspective, and you know what, I'm finding him.

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But what's really interesting is I'm also finding me when I seek him.

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The real me, the me who has been raised with Christ and who is being made

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into his image and his likeness.

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Now, to be quite honest, it's a practice.

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It's a practice still, you know, I'm, I'm still breaking some old mindsets

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and some old habits, and it's been a slow learning, but it's been such a

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delight and there's been so much freedom in the practice of seeking him.

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with all of myself. It's changing the way that I read scripture. I'm not necessarily looking for me

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anymore when I read these words. I'm looking for him and I'm finding him and it's blowing my mind.

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You know, his affection for you and I is so abundantly clear in his word.

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His permanent passion for us is actually very hard to miss.

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I'm changing the way that I pray. You know, I'm no longer concerned with

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telling the Lord what I think or feel about things. Instead, I'm coming to him to hear

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what he thinks about things and then I'm aligning my thoughts and my actions and my emotions to his.

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This seeking, it's changing the way that I view my circumstances and my relationships and

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even the times in which we are all living right now. You know, so often I used to come to the

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Lord with so many different lenses on. The lens of my circumstances, the lens of my hurt feelings,

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the lens of my bad behavior or somebody else's bad behavior, the lens of my regrets, the lens

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of how other Christians treated me, whether it was good, bad, or ugly, the lens of self.

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And I'm learning and I'm practicing to take those lenses off and purely seek him

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with my whole heart. And it's interesting because in this practice, he is becoming my only lens

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with which I now see my circumstances and my emotions and my feelings and my past and my future.

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Now, if you keep reading Jeremiah 29, there's so much treasure in this, but in the beginning of

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verse 14, the Lord says, I will be found by you. You know, seeking the Lord is never a pointless

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pursuit. It never returns empty. He will be found by you. You will find treasure. So today, I just

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want to encourage you take all the other lenses off and seek him with your whole heart. Seek him

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with your whole self. You will find him and it will change everything. The promise of perfect

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peace is found in Isaiah 26, three in Hebrew. It is Shalom, Shalom, meaning complete wholeness,

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nothing missing, nothing broken. This is who you are in Jesus because of Jesus.

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You are a living testimony of Jesus's ultimate win. With every step you take today,

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you're putting Jesus's victory on display and Satan's defeat on replay.

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you
