A lady called into our live radio program one day and said, “Mr. McGee, we love your program. We have all of your teachings on parenting and marriage. They are so good. They have helped us as parents and have saved our family. But I’d like to ask a question: what are the three most important things you did as a parent that helped your children?”
I said, “Well, the greatest thing I think we ever taught our kids was about sin.”
Now, I grew up in a church where if you sinned, you wouldn’t go back to church for a month! You thought, Man, I’ve sinned! I’ve got to get myself cleaned up! As soon as I pray for a week, read my Bible for at least three days in a row, and if I don’t cuss, and don’t get drunk, then I’ll go back to church. Well, that’s why nobody went back! We all felt condemned and were as lost as a goose in a snow storm.
So one of the things I wanted to make sure to teach my kids was that sin should never keep them away from God or keep them from going to church. The devil will try to trip people up by heaping condemnation on their heads when they sin. He’ll bombard them with guilt and tell them, “Look what you did! And you call yourself a Christian? Boy, you messed up big! How could God ever love you? You can’t go back to church after what you did. What do you think people will say? You’re a horrible Christian!”
Now, I taught my kids that sin was bad and that it has death attached to it. The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23). Sin might feel good, smell good, look good, and taste good, but in the end, it’s going to mess you up. But I also taught them that if they did sin, they could go boldly to the throne of grace and get mercy to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16). I taught them to run to God and ask for forgiveness, and not run away from God and allow the devil to beat them up with condemnation.
Sin has been dealt with. The blood of Jesus took care of it, and the Bible says when we run to God and confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
THE TAKE AWAY
God doesn’t hold grudges when we sin, and He isn’t waiting for us to step out of line so that He can beat us over the head and punish us. He’s a good Father who loves us and wants us to run to Him, confess what we did wrong so that we can stay in fellowship with Him, and He can bless our lives.
