The Power of Right Believing: 7 Keys to Freedom from Fear, Guilt, and Addiction (33 page)

Understand that we are not belittling the work of Jesus at the cross when we talk about the Father and His love for you. The truth is Jesus came to reveal the love of the Father to you. God so loved you that He sent His one and only beloved Son to pay the heavy price at the cross to cleanse you of all your sins.

Do you know that God loves Jesus dearly? Jesus is God’s darling Son, the apple of His eye. Now, if your Father in heaven didn’t withhold His precious Son, Jesus Christ, and sacrificed Him for you, how much do you think He loves you? You cannot begin to comprehend the intensity and sheer magnitude of your Father’s love for you until you realize how much the Father loves Jesus—because He gave up Jesus to ransom you.

I hope you are beginning to experience and see for yourself just how loved you are by the Father and how precious you are to Him! Don’t fear Him—see the heart of your Father’s love unveiled through Calvary’s cross.

But Pastor Prince, you don’t understand my past and all the mistakes I’ve made.

You are absolutely right. I don’t.

But your Father in heaven sure does, and He who knows you perfectly, loves you perfectly.

At the very beginning of the parable of the prodigal son, the younger son came to his father and demanded his share of his inheritance. In the Jewish culture, this was tantamount to the young man telling his father to “drop dead.” He was effectively saying, “Give me my share of the inheritance right now. I can’t wait for you to die.” It was a stinging slap on the face of his father. The young man completely humiliated and dishonored his father by making such an insolent request.

We need to understand this because if we are unable to grasp the extent to which this young man utterly rejected his father and chose his own way, we cannot appreciate the extent of his father’s love and grace in receiving him back home as his son. In the same way today, if we don’t realize how much we have rejected the Father through our sins, we cannot fully grasp, appreciate, and respond to the immense grace that He extends toward us in forgiving us totally. Those who think they have sinned little and are thus forgiven little, love little. But those who know they are forgiven much, love much (see Luke 7:47). Remember
who
told this parable—our redeemer Jesus, and He has firsthand knowledge of the Father’s heart of love.

Coming back to the story, upon his younger son’s demand, the father divided to his two sons what was due them. We know that the younger son then spent all his inheritance on riotous living and, when a severe famine arose in the land, he became penniless and was reduced to feeding swine on a farm.

It’s recorded for us that he was so famished that even the pods he was feeding the swine looked delectable to him. Let’s listen in on what he says at his lowest point: “How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants’ ” (Luke 15:17–19).

Let me ask you a question. Based on what you have just read, was it the son’s love for his father that made him journey home?

Do you think for one moment that he was truly contrite? Or that he even cared that he had broken his father’s heart?

I think not! He was clearly motivated by his stomach. He wanted to go home because he remembered that even the hired servants in his father’s house had more food than he did! The words that he planned to say to his father—“I have sinned against heaven and before you”—was what he thought would be the right dramatic, religious rhetoric to ensure that he would be allowed
some benefits
for returning home. You and I know that he wasn’t genuinely remorseful. What we are hearing is his stomach talking, not his heart. So it wasn’t repentance that drove him home. It was his stomach and perhaps even his sense of pride that he deserved at least what his father’s servants were getting.

When I was growing up, I would hear people teach about how
the son repented and decided to go home to his father. The truth is there was no repentance here. The young man began the trek home because he was starving. He was even prepared to go through the motion of saying words like, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants,” with the sole intention of getting his stomach filled since he had reasoned that the “hired servants have bread enough and to spare.”

He never expressed any love for the father or said that he missed his father’s presence and love. This is important for us to note because God wants us to know that even when our motivations are wrong, even when we have a hidden (usually self-centered) agenda and our intentions are not completely pure, He still runs to us in our time of need, just as the father ran to the young man and showered upon him his unmerited, undeserved, and unearned favor.

Oh, how unsearchable are the depths of His love and grace toward us! It will never be about our love for God. It will always be about His magnificent love for us. The Bible makes this clear: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10
KJV
). The hero in this parable is the father. It’s about the father’s perfect love for his imperfect son.

Some people think that fellowship with God can only be restored when you are perfectly contrite and have perfectly confessed all your sins. They think that you must apologize to God
before He can be appeased. Please understand that I have nothing against saying “sorry” to God or confessing our sins. All I am saying is that we are not as important as we make ourselves out to be. The
father
was the initiator. Before the son even had thoughts of returning home, the father had already missed him, was already looking out for him, and had
already
forgiven him. Before the son could utter a single word of his rehearsed apology, the father had already run to him, embraced him, and welcomed him home.

We are not the heroes in this story. It will never be about our apologies to God, our repentance, our actions, our love, our confessions, or our obedience. In and of ourselves, our actions—even the best ones—are laced with imperfections and impure motives. For those who believe that one must apologize before fellowship with God can be restored, this parable will rock their theology.

Read the parable for yourself in Luke 15:11–32. Notice how the son never got to complete his rehearsed speech. He attempted to but was completely overwhelmed by his father’s joyful response to his return. However impure his intentions or motivations were for coming home, the father lavished him with undeserved, unmerited, and unearned favor.

It’s all about our Father’s heart of grace, forgiveness, and love. Our Father God swallows up all our imperfections, and true repentance comes because of His goodness. Our Father is the hero—not us. Let’s make it all about Him and not about us!

Do I say “sorry” to God and confess my sins when I have fallen short and failed? Of course I do. But I do it not to be forgiven because I
know
that I am
already
forgiven through Jesus’ finished work. The confession is out of the overflow of my heart because I have experienced His goodness and grace and because I know that as His son, I am forever righteous through Jesus’ blood. It springs from being righteousness-conscious, not sin-conscious; from being forgiveness-conscious, not judgment-conscious. There is a massive difference.

You know, one can insist on the need to say “sorry” before we can be forgiven. But we all know that we can say “sorry” outwardly, yet deep in our hearts there is no true repentance. It’s like the kid in school who, together with his buddy, has to see the principal for bad behavior. Told to sit down, he sits, but whispers to his friend, “Inside I am standing up!” It’s like the account of Judas who betrayed Jesus. It’s recorded for us that he “repented… saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood… And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple” (Matt. 27:3–5
KJV
). But there was no true repentance as it was merely outward. We know this because the word “repented” here is the Greek word
metamelomai
, which expresses one’s desire that what has been done might be undone, but it is not accompanied with an effective change of heart.
¹

That is why we are not interested in the outward. Let’s go deep into the essence of our relationship with God and really experience His love when we have failed. If you understand this, you will begin
experiencing new dimensions in your love walk with the Father. You will realize that your Daddy God is all about relationship and not religious protocol. He just loves being with you. Under grace, He doesn’t demand perfection from you; He
supplies
perfection to you through the finished work of His Son, Jesus Christ. So no matter how many mistakes you have made, don’t be afraid of Him. He loves you. Your Father is running toward you to embrace you!

The wrong belief of the younger son was that he wanted to come back and earn his own keep as a hired servant. He didn’t want to receive his father’s provision by grace or unmerited favor. In his own self-absorbed pride, he wanted to work as a hired servant and earn his own food in the father’s house together with the rest of the servants. The father, of course, would have none of that.

You cannot merit by your own efforts the favor and blessings of God. They can only be received as gifts through His grace. He doesn’t want you as His hired servant. Your identity is that of a child—God’s child. He has a host of heavenly angels as His servants. What He desires of you is relationship. Instead of fearing Him and thinking that you must walk on eggshells in His presence, He wants you to come boldly into His presence.

Your Father wants you to know that as His beloved child, washed by the blood of Jesus, you can “come boldly to the throne of grace” at any time to obtain mercy and find grace to help in your time of need (Heb. 4:16). For a child of God under the new covenant, it’s not a throne of judgment; it’s a throne of grace.

Do you believe in His grace?

Do you believe that the blood of Jesus has washed away all your sins?

Do you believe that your Father in heaven loves you?

Then come boldly into His presence whenever you fail. Come just as you are to receive mercy and find grace. He has promised in His Word that He will help you in your time of need. What is your need today? Talk to your Father about it. What struggles, fears, and addictions overwhelm you today? Lay it all before your heavenly Father and let Him help you.

My friend, you are no longer a slave to sin, you are a child of God. The Word says, “For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father’ ” (Rom. 8:15). The word “adoption” is more accurately translated as “sonship.”
²
Through Jesus, you have received the Spirit of sonship by whom you cry out, “Abba, Father.” Did you notice that the Holy Spirit refused to translate the word “Abba” into English? The original Aramaic word
Abba
is retained. Do you know why? It’s because, to the Jews,
Abba
is the most intimate way in which you can address your father.

I love it when I’m in Israel and I hear little children running around in playgrounds, calling out, “Abba! Abba!” and jumping into their daddy’s embrace. It’s a beautiful picture. In Abba’s arms, a child is most secure, protected, and loved. No enemy can pull a child out of his or her Abba’s strong arms. That’s the image God wants us to have when we pray to Him and call Him “Abba.” Of course, you can call Him “Daddy” or “Papa,” or whatever term helps you to see God as a warm, loving, and caring Father.

Unless you can see Him as your Abba Father, you will continue to have a “spirit of bondage again to fear” (Rom. 8:15). This spirit of bondage refers to the Old Testament fear of God. It’s a slavish fear of judgment and punishment that brings you into bondage and makes you afraid of God. But God doesn’t want you to fear Him. He wants you to have a Spirit of sonship! Too many believers are living with an orphan, fatherless spirit. If you are entangled with all kinds of fears, guilt, and worries today, what you need is a good heavenly dose of the Father’s love for you!

Something amazing happens in your spirit when you see God as your Father. If my daughter Jessica has a nightmare, all she has to do is cry out, “Daddy!” and Daddy is there! And if there is a
monster under her bed, that monster is about to be torn to pieces by Daddy! Jessica doesn’t have to go, “O Father that liveth and inhabiteth the next room, I plead with thee to come to me at this time of peril, that thou mayest rescue me from this nightmare!” All she has to do is to cry out, “Daddy!” and I’m there.

Similarly, in your moments of weakness you don’t have to approach God with perfect prayers. You just cry out, “Daddy!” and your heavenly Father runs to you! You are not coming before a judge. You are coming before your Father, your Daddy God, who embraces and loves you just the way you are.

Take time to come to your Abba Father today. Believe that He loves you unconditionally today. See Him welcoming you with a smile on His face and with outstretched arms. Run into His embrace, bask in His perfect love for you, and let it melt away every worry, fear, and insecurity. When you believe and receive your Father’s love for you, it will put unshakable peace and strength in your heart!