Pray & Prophesy Over Your Prodigal’s Promise!

Thus says the Lord: “Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work [raising of your children, prayer] will be rewarded,” says the Lord; “and your children will return from the enemy’s land. There is [confident] hope for your future,” says the Lord; “Your children will come back to their own country” (Jeremiah 31:16-17 AMP).

Many are standing on God’s Word and His promises regarding the return of prodigals, whether it be their own child or loved one, a friend, or those contending for a wave of revival that includes the lost returning home.

When studying prodigals, we came across a powerful truth regarding the biblical illustration of the Prodigal Son story. This word prepares the foundation regarding what we have thought was lost purpose, but God’s plan always contains redemption, as the following paragraphs illustrate.

Luke 15:20 (NKJV) says, concerning the prodigal son, “…when he was still a great way off, his father...had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.”

Jewish history enlightens us as to why the father ran, and it is a stunning revelation. This man’s son had demanded his inheritance, wanting what he considered to be his now, rather than when his father died, as was the custom of the day. After receiving his portion, the son left his home, turning his back on the values he had been taught. He eventually lost everything, wasting it all on parties and prostitutes, and ended up working in a pigpen. The son broke his father’s heart, as well as breaking all the rules of the tight-knit community he had been brought up in. After he came to his senses, the son decided to return home. Luke 15:20 tells us his father saw his son when he was still a long way off and ran to him.

In those times, a Middle Eastern man never ran, because in order to do so he would have to raise up his tunic so he wouldn’t trip, and in so doing would expose his bare legs. In that culture, it was considered humiliating and shameful for a man to show his bare legs. In addition, it was known that if a Jewish son lost his inheritance among Gentiles, and then returned home, the community would perform a ceremony called the kezazah, or a “ceremony of shame.”

During this ceremony, they would break a large pot or pitcher in front of the son. As they smashed it into pieces, they would declare him to be cut off from his people, all ties broken, and he would no longer be welcome in the community.

This, then, brings us to the question: why did the father run to his son, which also brought a level of shame to himself? In essence, the father was running to get to his son in order to extend grace before anyone else could get to him with the law. He wanted to extend love, acceptance, welcome, and hope before anyone else could take it away. He wanted his son welcomed, not shamed with humiliation and rejection.

As onlookers watched the father run toward his son, reuniting, hugging and kissing him, it would be apparent there would be no kezazah. Instead, there would be a homecoming party, a celebration of his restoration, which only the father could bring. No rejection—his father bore the shame and showed everyone that his son was welcomed home.

The application for us is fairly obvious. Our Father bore our sin and shame through Jesus. We can be forgiven and redeemed, and even our lost purpose and destiny can be restored. As we repent, He wipes the slate clean and gives us a fresh start.

God’s Promise: What He did for the prodigal son, He will do for you, and He will also do it for those for whom you are praying. Lost purpose will be recovered.

Purpose

The apostle Paul was a man of great purpose who understood destiny. In 2 Timothy, he wrote to his son in the faith, Timothy, concerning the subject.

For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan from before the beginning of time—to show us his grace through Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 1:9 NLT).

Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began (2 Timothy 1:9 NKJV).

The word purpose is the Greek word prothesis (Strong’s 4286). Pro is before. Prothesis means to set before, to set up, an exposition, and it also means to resolve or design.

You can easily recognize two English words derived from prothesis. First of all is the word thesis, which is a written report. An English teacher may have asked you to write a thesis on a particular subject or topic in school. Thesis can also refer to an essay or written composition concerning a specific viewpoint. In some situations, it could refer to a book.

Paul said to Timothy, and to you and I today: God wrote a thesis on you and recorded it in a book He has in Heaven. Before you ever entered the womb, God wrote His thesis on the details involving the design of your purpose, listing the intentions and paths He had in mind for you.

In eternity past, there came a time when God, the Creator of Heaven and earth, sat down and studied your life and what it would mean, why it would be, and then He composed a “written thesis” entitled Purpose. Amazingly, your life has spent time in God’s mind.

One such thesis would be titled “Tim’s Purpose,” in which He began to write a composition on my particular purpose. When He finished the book, He said, “Now, when the time is right, I will create him.”

Other theses would be titled Tom’s Purpose, or Dave’s Purpose, or Rachel’s Purpose. And one has your name on it. God sat down, wrote a thesis about you and recorded it in Heaven. He said, “When the time is right, I’ll create him or her.” Which means the time must be right, because you’re here!

The time is “right” for you to understand and fulfill your destiny. The time is “right” for you to begin to live out the thesis of God for your life. Your being alive now is proof of it. Just as God took a book called the Bible and quickened it, making it a rhema (living) word to us, so He can, and will, do with the book concerning you.

God wants to “quicken His thesis” about you to you. He wants His words of purpose made alive inside you. He wants it to become rhema. He wants His composition written about you to come alive so that His book about you isn’t just read—it’s lived. It’s a living thesis for you, residing inside you. Make no mistake about it. God, the Author, wrote your plan well. He left out no details. He thought through all of the chapters and, as Paul would write to the Hebrews, God is not only the Author, He’s also the Finisher.

He will help you finish the journey. He will assist you in finishing the “plans.” He will help you on all that is set forth. God says, “I wrote it down. I made it plain. I declared your purpose and I’ll even help you do it!”

Prothesis—before you were born God wrote your thesis. Then He made you with everything it would take to do it. With His Holy Spirit quickening and guiding, and with His help, you can do it.

I want us to see this word in connection with another word.

For [the] administration of the fulness of times; to head up all things in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth; in him, in whom we have also obtained an inheritance, being marked out beforehand according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will (Ephesians 1:10-11 Darby).

Purpose is the Greek word prothesis. Counsel is the Greek word boulē (Strong’s 1012) and it means the will, to decree, to aim, and it also refers to the decision-making process of government. The parliamentary government in modern Greece is called the boulē, not the Congress like in the United States.

Why do they use the word boulē? Because boulē means deliberation and reflection. The Greek government reflects and deliberates before the decrees are made. They reflect on the projects needed as they meet in counsel together. They reflect and deliberate before the will is written down (before it’s recorded).

God says before We made you (God said in Genesis, let Us make man in Our image and likeness, referring to the Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), before We wrote your thesis, We reflected on your purpose. We deliberated and thought it through. We exchanged ideas concerning you and took counsel together concerning Our will for your life.

The ways intended for you were reflected upon by the parliament of Heaven. The parliamentary counsel of Heaven decreed and declared the intended purpose for each man and woman. As They wrote the thesis for each person, They had it recorded, and when it was the right time, we were born.

David says in Psalm 139, “My days were written down before there was one of them.” Acts 13:36 (NKJV) says, “For David, after he served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, was buried with his fathers….” The word will in that verse is boulē. The parliamentary counsel of Heaven had a purpose, a thesis, for David to accomplish and David served it. Acts 13:36 (AMPC) says, “For David, after he had served God’s will and purpose and counsel in his own generation, fell asleep [in death]….”

David discovered and fulfilled the purpose of God for his life. He had purpose in his generation and he accomplished it. You, too, have purpose. God wrote your story beforehand and is now working on paths that will enable you to fulfill it in your generation.

I said earlier there were two words readily seen in the Greek word for purpose (prothesis). One is, of course, thesis. The second word is prosthesis, which refers to artificial limbs. It used to be if someone’s leg had to be cut off, a wooden leg or a peg was put in its place. Why make an artificial limb? To restore a lost purpose. To restore lost movement and balance and to restore some kind of use or purpose that was missing, cut off.

What a word this is for us! What a hope this gives us. You may say, “My life has been cut off from any real meaning. There’s something missing. Years ago, I did this or that and I feel cut off because of it. I sinned. I did something I’m ashamed of. I did something I know was absolutely wrong. I miserably failed. I made decisions that were selfish. I made choices that were directly opposed to why I’m here.”

Quite possibly, a situation may have occurred that you had no control over and cut you off. Perhaps a tragedy took place, or you experienced a broken relationship, or suffered some form of abuse. Because of that, it seems as if you’ve been severed from any real purpose. You’ve been cut off from a life of significance and meaning and the balance in your life was thrown askew.

God may have a thesis that He reflected upon and wrote for you, but life or fate has written you a different one and you’re living cut off from God’s thesis. You can’t complete His thesis for you because what is needed to do so was amputated from you. What I want to emphasize is that your purpose—the reason you are here—doesn’t change. It never changes. God is not rewriting your story; He already wrote it!