Come to Papa

I wanted to share this precious testimony with all of you!
It's an excerpt from a book that I recently read, it touched my heart and really helped me see God in a new light! I hope that it blesses you as much as it did me...

"When I was preaching at Metro Christian Fellowship, one of the sisters in the fellowship told me a wonderful story, and I will tell it to you with her permission. She came up during the ministry time after one of the messages to receive the good news of the forgiveness of God. Thirty years earlier, she had a child out of wedlock, was sent away by her family to have the child and give it up for adoption. When she came home after that experience, she was met by her father, who was the cranky accountant that many of us picture God to be. He gave her a little black book in which he had detailed all of the expenses of her pregnancy and her experience. He took her into her room, set that little black book on her dresser, and said, "There, now you remember."

How many of us know that little black books like that are about more than money? They are about things like shame, rejection, fear, and brokenness. Then every week, as she would bring home her paycheck from her job she would hand her paycheck to her father. He would receive it, and then he would go into her room, take that little black book, and mark out a line of debt - week after week, line upon line, until the debt was paid. Perhaps you can relate to the burden of that weight of shame and guilt clouding every encounter with your father, the one who could forgive, but chooses not to. The world is filled with people living under just such a cloud of unforgiveness. They never know the joy of being set free from the debt, never believing that God would be the Father of forgiveness.
So, that particular Sunday during the ministry time, she was at the altar when the Lord opened the eyes of her spirit. She saw herself standing again in her bedroom and looking at that little black book on the dresser, when suddenly the door opened and Jesus walked in. He walked straight to that little black book, opened it, and stamped it "Paid-in-Full." Then He took that little book of her debt and flung it away! He sent it away. He threw it out! And He took a little white book that was a book of promise and hope, gave it to her, and said, "This is it, this is the Book of Salvation." He replaced the debt with hope. The debt is paid and cast away. His blood is enough. You owe God nothing, except to say thank you and ask Him again."

Taken from the Book "Come to Papa" (Encountering the Father that Jesus Knew)
By: Gary Wiens

-Colleen Eide