January 10, 2007

Repentance

Last week, as Melissa and I drove back to my house after another long day volunteering at Passion '07, we got onto the topic of repentance and how it's not a one time event, but something you do continuously. Melissa made the incredibly wise remark that God draws us closer to Him through a cycle of repentance, forgiveness and filling us with His grace. Yesterday, I e-mailed her asking her to expand on that thought because our conversation last week was one of those that you have after a long day, in a weary state, where you're not always sure what you're saying and then you certainly can't remember it clearly the next day.

She responded with the following and I found it so simple - yet so profound - that I thought I would repost it here:

Like anything else, there are no systems, steps or rules that are always absolute; saying that is true about anything would take away from the power of Jesus. This is just a pattern I believe God tends to use in drawing us closer to Him. We could just think that repentance is needed when we first come into a relationship with Christ, but I think it’s often a pattern of how we grow closer to Him and become more like Him.

REPENTANCE: Repentance is not only realizing that we are sinning, but requires that we also change our habits. John the Baptist came to deliver a message of repentance in preparation for the coming of Christ. This was intentional and I believe a pattern with how we should model change in our own lives. I think a lot of people think they have repented for something when they have not. Only God can give us a repentant heart and a lot of times we try to muster up a repentant heart instead of being honest with God and asking Him to give this to us. If I only am convicted of my sin, but do not change, was I ever really convicted in the first place? It might be a self conviction but I believe that if the Lord is stirring up repentance in our hearts, He will also give us the power to change. We always have the option of being disobedient, but obedience would be accepting God's power and grace.

Once we experience this repentance, and we are free from that sin, this is when God comes in and saves us from whatever it is we are suffering from. Many, many times in Acts when the apostles were teaching the message of God to unbelievers, the first step was to repent (or baptism of repentance), then the baptism of water (Jesus), then they receive an abundance of the power of the Holy Spirit (also referred to as baptism of the Holy Spirit) [Acts 2:38; Acts 8: 15-25; Acts 19:4-7]. In Acts, when someone asks how they receive Christ, the response if often repentance. It’s my opinion that we cannot often forgive ourselves, because we have not yet repented. Once we have repented, and we STILL cannot forgive ourselves, then we are saying that our judgments are more important than God's, even though we may not consciously think this.

When we experience true repentance, we always experience Christ’s love and become more like Him. This leads us to death of self and life to the spirit. Deep calls out to deep giving birth to the sprit in us. All life flowing from God.

Posted by hannah at 04:14 PM