SID: Hello, Sid Roth your investigative reporter here with Leif Hetland. There’s a story that we’re all familiar with, it’s called the prodigal son. You remember it, the younger brother takes his inheritance, squanders it, and then comes to his senses and comes back home and is accepted by the father. And the older brother is kind of uncomfortable over it. But Leif, you told me the Spirit of God gave you a different understanding there.
LEIF: Yeah, because I think that most of us in religion would focus on the story as, we call the story; the Bible calls the story, the story of the prodigal son.
SID: So you focus on the son.
LEIF: We focus on the prodigal son. We would rather focus on the failure of man, than the faithfulness of God. The story is not about a prodigal son, it is actually about the loving father, that had two sons, and He gave His inheritance to both of them. Two sons, one was rebellious, and he had this heart that I used to have, and I think that most children in America and the western world, “give me, give me,” where we value God, we value our parents; we value our system for what it is going to do for us. And the result was that he squandered this up in a distant land, and he ended up in the pigpen. And I have been in the pigpen, suicidal, drug addict, and I know how it is to be so far away from God which seems like there is no way back. But there was a loving father that had never forgotten about his son that was looking for his son. And then the story is about another brother. And somehow we have a tendency, we think that is a great story about this drug, addict, this pimp, or this prostitute, or this bad person. But there is another brother also in this story. And the thing that amazes me, especially because that is the religious brother, and there is a lot of good religious people, I used to be one of them, good Southern Baptist pastor. But I also know good, religious Muslims, religious Jews; religious Hindus. This religious brother he was out on the field doing all these things for God, and somehow he had never experienced the party that God wanted him to have. God the Father, God, God of love, the Bible says, he was also looking for him and saying, when he came and he complained, “Why don’t I get to experience all of these incredible things.” He didn’t realize that there was also provision. That the third son that the story does not talk about he is the one that is telling the story. His name is Jesus Christ. He had an invitation for the second son, the religious son, also to come home to a God of love, a father of love, to experiencing love, to experiencing intimacy, to experiencing relationship, to experiencing the food that was on the table. The Bible talks just a little bit of the fruit that was on the table. Love, joy, peace, patience; all the things that we all are looking for that is just some of the benefits that is in the Father’s house. So it is not just for the rebellious, it is also for the religious, that there is an invitation from a loving God to come home, to come into intimacy and to experiencing that God is a God of love that wants to give his inheritance to sons and daughters. Not orphans, that takes it be demand, and wastes it in a distant land, or in a pigpen, or perhaps just working and striving and stressing, like I used to do for many years for God, but not experiencing the joy and benefits of being a son but acted more like a servant and a slave.
SID: What does God think of you, Leif? What does He think of you?
LEIF: He thinks that I am his beloved son, whom he loves, and in whom he is well pleased. If he looks at me, I do believe and I listen every single morning for just some wonderful words that God has to say to me, because I have to renew my mind every single day so that I hear the first voice. Because there was another voice also there, that says, “Did God really say? Did God really love you? Are you really healed? Did this really take place when you went to Pakistan? How do you know that these people really got saved?” This voice of the serpent; I often call it – it was the first liberal theologian in the Bible. That serpent comes in and questions and doubts. So I start my day, not by praying and studying and doing all of these things, I just listen to what my heavenly Father has to say to me. He says, “You are righteous, you are a co-heir with Christ, what is true of Jesus is now true of you, and I have placed a robe of righteousness upon you so when I look at you, I see Jesus in you and I am well pleased. So you are welcome home. You can come to me anytime. You have access to me, as a God, as a Father, through Jesus Christ. So when I look at you I see a straight “A”. You got 100 on the test. Not based upon what you did, but based upon what Jesus has done for you.” And that’s where my identity is. It is on what Jesus has done for me, not what I am doing for Him, but what Jesus has done for me. And that is something that every single one of us can experience and receive. You cannot achieve it; only receive it as a gift.
SID: You know, I had a wonderful Jewish mother who died, and knows the Messiah and is in heaven right now. I could do no bad. She loved me no matter what I did, and I did a lot of bad things. And what I figure, Leif, is my heavenly Father took over for my mother and He’s doing even a better job, even a better job. We’ll be right back after this. And I’m going to have Leif pray for you to experience and feel Father god’s love. Don’t go away.