Get honest and humble enough to say, “God, I need help with this addiction…

12/03/25

Gospel Corner

JOEL OSTEEN MINISTRIES
Today’s Word

Today’s Scripture
“When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you.”’”
Luke 15:17–18, NLT

Get Real
The prodigal son wasted his father’s inheritance on wild living, had no money, ended up feeding hogs and eating their food to survive. This could have been the end of the story. But today’s Scripture says he finally got real, quit pretending like everything was okay, took off the mask, admitted his sin, and returned to his father. When the father saw him coming, the father came running, hugged him, forgave him, and restored him to his sonship.

The father represents God. When you take your mask off, He will come running to you. That means you get honest and humble enough to say, “God, I need help with this addiction. I need help with my temper. I need help in my marriage. I’ve made a mess of things. I can’t straighten my life up by myself.” He knows your insecurities, your fears, your failures, you’re weaknesses. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay. When you come to God and ask for His help, for His forgiveness, for His mercy, that’s when He begins to restore you and set you on the right path.

A Prayer for Today
“Father, thank You that I can humble myself and admit my weaknesses, sins, and failures. Thank You that Your power goes to work in me when I stop pretending that I have it all together. I am taking off the masks and asking You to help bring the change I need. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

In the account of the woman caught in adultery, the Bible is silent on what Jesus wrote on the ground with His finger. But I believe that when He stooped down, He was writing the Law of Moses.

I have been to Jerusalem many times. During one of my visits many years ago to the temple precinct where Jesus would have met this woman, the Lord opened my eyes to see that the floor of the temple precinct was made of hard cobblestone.

This means Jesus was not writing on soil. He was writing with His finger on stone.

Then, in a flash, I saw that Jesus was writing the law on stone. He was effectively saying to the Pharisees, “You presume to teach Me about the Law of Moses? I am He who wrote the law.”

Jesus wrote twice on the ground with His finger, thus completing the typology, as we know that God wrote the Ten Commandments with His finger twice.

The first set of the Ten Commandments was destroyed by Moses when he saw the Israelites worshiping the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai. God then wrote another set on stones and gave it to Moses for it to be placed under the mercy seat in the ark of the covenant.

I had never heard anyone preach this before—it was a fresh revelation straight from heaven. I love it when the Lord opens my eyes to see His grace!

Do you know why it’s so exciting to know what Jesus wrote on the ground that day? It’s so significant because it shows us that the very author of God’s perfect law does not use the law to judge and condemn us today.

And it’s not because God simply decided to be merciful on us. No! It’s because Jesus Himself fulfilled all the righteous requirements of the law on our behalf and took upon Himself every curse and stroke of punishment for our sins on His own body at the cross.

We are forgiven because He was judged. We are accepted because He was condemned!

Whatever your challenge today, your answer is found in receiving a fresh revelation of how much you are forgiven in Christ.