November 03, 2015 - "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9
When I enrolled in the East Texas Baptist College in 1953, I was a bit immature to take on any serious college schedule. I enrolled with a 17-hours schedule, but my fascination with fishing on Marshall’s T&P Lake and squirrel hunting on Cypress Creek interfered with my classroom attendance. Consequently I wound up with two F’s in my first semester. When the Korean War broke out, I was drafted into the Army and flown to Fort Bliss, Texas. That two years changed a lot of my habits and I returned to college a disciplined man.
Dean Thompson promised to remove the F’s from my transcript if I repeated the courses and passed them. I did repeat them and made good grades the second time around. I didn’t see my grade transcript again until I agreed to teach Algebra during a teacher shortage in the mid-sixties. (I was Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Mauriceville, Texas at that time). When Superintendent Miller showed me my college transcript¸ there they were: two big, fat F’s! They’d never been removed! I swore I would get it straightened out, but never did.
When I was a teenager, I walked into a tent revival in Center, Texas with a lot of F’s on my personal transcript. Evangelist John Rawlings said that God would remove them if I confessed my sins and asked for forgiveness. My life really changed when the burden of my sins was removed. They’re now cast “behind God’s back”, “buried in the depths of the sea and remembered against me no more forever”. Unlike ETBC, God promised to take the F’s off my transcript… and did.
One day I’ll cross the Jordan into the Promised Land and The Lamb’s Book of Life will be opened. And when I see my transcript, by the grace of God…
…the F’s will be gone.
