100 Days of Right Believing: Daily Readings from The Power of Right Believing (37 page)

A
fter I had preached a message on the Father’s love in my church, a young man who had been involved in many gang fights and had been in and out of prison numerous times came forward to receive Jesus as his Lord and Savior. He looked straight at the youth pastor and asked him somberly, “Can God forgive me for all the mistakes I’ve made?” The youth pastor affirmed him, saying, “The moment you came forward to receive Jesus into your life, your Father in heaven forgave you of all your sins and made you His child. Right now, that’s who you are—His beloved child.”

My friend, no matter how many times you have failed, how many mistakes you have made, and how terrible you think your sins are, the cleansing power and blood of your Savior, Jesus Christ, is greater than them all. God made this promise to you in His Word: “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool” (Isa. 1:18
NLT
). That’s the power of the cross in your life. The moment you believe in Christ, all your sins are washed away once and for all and you are made as white as snow. Have you seen how snow dazzles in the sunlight? That’s how your Father in heaven sees you right now, clothed with the gleaming robe of righteousness.

But Pastor Prince, what have I done to deserve this robe of righteousness?

Consider the prodigal son. What did the son do to deserve the father’s embrace or the best robe that the father commanded his hired servants to bring for him (Luke 15:22)? Absolutely nothing.

The “best robe” is a picture of the robe of righteousness that your heavenly Father clothed you with when you received Jesus. This robe of righteousness is a
free gift
. You cannot earn it, work for it, or merit it. That is why everything we hear about what the father did to welcome his son home is a picture of our heavenly Father’s amazing and unconditional grace.

Our part is to just believe in His goodness and wholeheartedly receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness from Him to reign victoriously over every area of defeat in our lives. Please join me now in today’s prayer.

T
oday, I want us to consider the older brother in the parable of the prodigal’s father. He got massively angry when he heard that his shameless sinner of a brother returning home was the reason there was music and dancing in his father’s house. Look at what he said to his father: “Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him” (Luke 15:29–30).

This son’s response revealed what he believed about his father—that he was a hard taskmaster, and that he needed to be served before his approval could be won. He believed that he needed to earn his father’s blessings. Clearly he missed the whole point of what it means to be a son. His eyes were not on his father’s goodness, but on his own performance. He had a slavish mind-set and was persistently trying to please his father with his service and by the care he took not to transgress his father’s commandments. He never understood the father’s heart. Simply put, he never understood grace.

Unfortunately, there are many believers today who are like the older brother. Rather than receive the Father’s perfect love and acceptance by grace, they try to earn His blessings. Instead of enjoying a love relationship between a Father and His child, they still live under this veil of the law. They hear the music and the dancing, and they don’t understand it. They hear about their Father’s amazing grace, and they can’t comprehend it. They read stories of lives transformed by grace, and they can’t accept it. To them, God is all about keeping commandments, service, obedience, and rewards.

Do you know what the father, who had left the party to seek out his older son, said in response to this son’s complaint? “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours” (Luke 15:31).

My friend, it’s not about
your
love for God; it’s about the Father’s love for you. He is always the initiator. It has always been about
His
love for you. Don’t live life mad, angry, guilty, and frustrated. Come into the Father’s house and find rest for your soul. It’s not about your own efforts. Your Father wants you to know that ALL He has is already yours—not because of your perfect performance, but because you are His child through Jesus’ finished work.

Romans 8:32 declares, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Daddy God has already
with Jesus
given you all things. Jesus is your acceptance, righteousness, holiness, provision, and wisdom. Whatever it is you need in your life, your Father has already given to you through Jesus.

So come home to His embrace. Come home to grace. Come and join in the music and dancing!

P
astor Prince, are you saying then that everything is just by grace and we can live any way we want with total disregard for God? Are you saying that we don’t have to serve Him?

Well, ask yourself this: When someone genuinely encounters the Father’s love, favor, and blessings in a way that is totally undeserving, how do you think he or she will live?

Take a moment to put yourself in the shoes of the prodigal son. After all the wrongs you have committed against your father, he gives you a lavish reception filled with hugs and kisses. You just went from starving to being clothed with a fresh, clean robe and wearing the ring of your father, authorizing you to make payments in his name. And as if that is not enough, your father has invited all the neighbors, killed a choice calf, and they are having a homecoming barbecue party with music and dancing in your honor.

Now, does this make you want to rebel against your father again by leaving home and going back to the filthy pigpen, wallowing in the mud and feeding on things that will never satisfy you? Of course not!

There is a great misunderstanding that believers who struggle with and indulge in sin, and who are still in love with the world, do so because they don’t love God enough. Believers are told to love God more, thinking that if people love God more, they would love sin and the world less.

But God opened my eyes one day to the real reason believers are still entangled with sin and the world. I’ve never heard anyone preach this before, so this is fresh from heaven. The apostle John tells us, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). Notice that it is the love
of
the Father, not the love
for
the Father. So people who love the world
and are trapped by worldly pursuits are actually people who don’t know or don’t believe in their hearts the love of the Father for them.

Rather than messages of “You’ve got to love God more!” what we really need is more preaching that is all about the love
of
the Father. It will never be about our love for Him, but
His
love for us.

Beloved, when people come to truly know and believe the Father’s love for them and have it burning in their hearts, they will no longer want to go out and live like the devil. There is just something powerfully transformative about grace. That’s what right believing in the Father’s love brings. If you’ve tasted and savored grace from your heavenly Father, you never want to live in the wilderness of sin, away from the Father’s embrace, ever again.