A Father’s Legacy – Sunday Thought For The Day
The greatest shame of my Christian life has also brought me great blessing in my Christian life. It may seem esoteric in the truest meaning of the word even to me, but the gift of God born out of my shame and personal disappointment is something that albeit I warn Christians to avoid same, is also the realization of my unworthiness and the joy of forgiveness and redemption I experience every day. It has given me an understanding I’m not sure I would comprehend in the same way without what I view as the betrayal of my God and myself.
I speak of personal redemption and repentance. The greatest shame of my Christian life was to backslide after having walked faithfully and obediently with our Lord for years, but greater is God’s grace than all of my sin. As I now never fail to say: “I am cleansed by the blood and I bathe in the warm wash of redemption every day.” I am restored and blessed beyond measure, because God didn’t kick me to the curb or sentence me to never be used again. Quite the opposite. He has restored me and is using me.
Even though I am living a life of Christ every day, I make no pretense of fully understanding the grace of God, but I do understand the love of my Father in heaven in a way perhaps I wouldn’t had I not backslid. Don’t get wrong; I am not saying go out and backslide so you can experience the love and forgiveness of God as I do now.
I am reminded of the words of the late Charles H. Spurgeon who said: “Repentance grows as faith grows. Do not make any mistake about it; repentance is not a thing of days and weeks, a temporary penance to be got over as fast as possible! No; it is the grace of a lifetime, like faith itself. God’s little children repent, and so do the young men and the fathers. Repentance is the inseparable companion of faith.”
READ:
Luke 15:11-24 KJV
11 And he said, A certain man had two sons:
12 And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.
13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
15 And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
16 And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:
24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
About the Author
Mychal Massie
Mychal S. Massie is an ordained minister who spent 13 years in full-time Christian Ministry. Today he serves as founder and Chairman of the Racial Policy Center (RPC), a think tank he officially founded in September 2015. RPC advocates for a colorblind society. He was founder and president of the non-profit “In His Name Ministries.” He is the former National Chairman of a conservative Capitol Hill think tank; and a former member of the think tank National Center for Public Policy Research. Read entire bio here