When my children were in school, I felt like good moms needed a one-liner to use whenever they were dropping their children off at school, so I had one I used: “Ask good questions!”

I heard another one somewhere: “Make good choices.”

Actually, both are great reminders, but “make good choices” is a reminder needed more often in life.

And prodigals especially need help in this area. They often make choices that are detrimental to their health and the safety of others. Sometimes their choices can lead to the losing of jobs, family, character, or reputation, and even life.

How anyone can choose anything or anyone over God makes no sense to those who are saved and love Him, but prodigals are deceived. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says it this way, “whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them” (NKJV).

The Lord is calling to them: “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ Whenever you turn to the right hand Or whenever you turn to the left” (Isaiah 30:21).

Some good choices offered by the Lord include:

• “Every good gift and every perfect gift” (James 1:17).
• “strength and prudence” (Job 12:16).
• “His favor is for life” (Psalm 30:5).
• “Truth” (John 4:16).
• “life … more abundantly” (John 10:10).
• “perfect peace” (Isaiah 26:3). “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (John 14:27).
• “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).
• “joy of [His] salvation” (Psalm 51:12).
• “the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and … not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1).

Some counterfeits offered by Satan include:

• Drugs or alcohol instead of worship: “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).
• Unmarried sexual relationships or homosexual relationships instead of God-ordained marriage: “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4). “Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due” (Romans 1:27).
• Worldly concert experiences instead of the presence of God: “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20); “(for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God)” (Exodus 34:14).
• Wanting their definition of freedom instead of God’s: “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).

Prodigals are choosing inferior, finite things over superior, infinite God: one more drink, one more dose, one more sexual encounter, one more experience, one more sin.

Perhaps they think the life that includes those sins is better than the abundant life in Christ. Perhaps they cannot imagine their lives without whatever it is they have been choosing.

This is one of the ways Satan lies to them, saying that what he has for them is better than what God has for them. “Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them” (Deuteronomy 11:16).

There is nothing like living in the will of God. There is nothing like worshiping Him. There is nothing like being in His presence. And that is one reason we pray for the salvation of our prodigals—we love them so much and want the absolute best for them.

You know your prodigal better than anyone. What counterfeit is he/she accepting? Pray against that.

Our Father, __________ is choosing __________ over a relationship with You. I pray against the lie that it is more wonderful than You. I pray he/she will not believe the lie of the counterfeits. I pray his/her mind will be open to the truth of who You are. Cause him/her to know “what the riches of the glory of the [Your] inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18 KJV), and move __________ to choose salvation, making YOU Lord of his/her life. In Jesus’ name I pray.