Tag Archives: confess

WHAT IS REPENTANCE?

Christian life, ,

I used to think that repentance was about those crisis moments when I came face-to-face with the bad things I had said and done. I was ever so sorry and cried and pleaded with God to forgive me. I felt much better after I had got my sin off my chest, and then carried on with my life until the next episode of “repentance”. Believe me, I had many of those crisis moments. However, that isn’t the Bible’s meaning of repentance.

Repentance may involve those times of tears and regret that but the Bible’s meaning of repentance is much more than periodically acknowledging and feeling sorry for our sin.

Repentance has has two parts to it. The Old Testament meaning comes from the Hebrew word “shuv” which means “return”. You were once walking on the path of God’s Word, i.e., living in obedience to God’s instructions, but you have wandered off the path into the wilderness of sin and unbelief. Return to the way of truth lest you be lost and die in the wilderness where there are no landmarks to show you the way to God, and no food and water to sustain you.

The second meaning of repentance in the New Testament is the Greek word “metanoia” which means “change your mind”. We sin because we are deceived. We believe the lies that the world, the flesh, and the devil sow into our minds, lies like… sin is pleasurable; God won’t notice; God understands; God won’t mind this time; I won’t do it again; it’s only a small thing… and, and, and.

However, sin comes from an attitude – rebellion. “I want to do it! I’m going to do it! I will do it!” and, worst of all, “I’ll do what I want to do, and then ask God for forgiveness!!”

Repentance starts with a different attitude towards sin…changing our mind, first of all about God and His attitude towards sin. God hates sin, everything we say, do, and think, that contradicts who He is – holy, righteous, pure, and utterly committed to be who He is, the I AM.

We can only change our minds about God and His attitude to our sin when we understand that, as His creation, we are accountable to Him for our thoughts, words and actions. We WILL give an account of our sin, unless we repent, which includes the awareness of God’s attitude to sin, and receive the forgiveness Jesus paid for with His blood. We can only overcome our desire to sin by trusting the Holy Spirit to provide the power to fulfil our resolve.

Secondly, because all our words and actions flow from the way we think, we need to understand ourselves. Even as new creatures, born from above by God’s Spirit, we still have a sin-nature that produces ungodly desires.

‭James‬ ‭1:14‭-‬15‬ ‭NLT‬
[14] “Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. [15] These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.”

Through God’s Spirit in us, we are instructed to kill those ungodly desires by following the leading of the Spirit instead of giving in to the desires of the flesh.

Then, thirdly, we are to think differently about God’s Word. The Bible is far more than a book about God and people. Empowered by its author, the Holy Spirit, it transforms our minds if we believe what it teaches.

‭2 Timothy‬ ‭3:16‬ ‭NLT‬
[16] “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.”

So, repentance, changing our minds and returning to God’s way, is not only an event but also a lifestyle. You see, we developed some strange beliefs about God, ourselves, and how God and we relate, during our growing up years. We were influenced to think wrong thoughts from the ungodly nature we were born with…

‭Romans‬ ‭5:10‬ ‭NLT‬
[10] “For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son.”

… as well as from the people in the world around us.

As we journey with Jesus from the moment of our new birth, we need to change the way we think about Him and us, and the way we react in life.

Paul explains it like this…

‭Romans‬ ‭12:2‬ ‭NLT‬
[2] “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

How can we change the way we think so that we avoid sinning against the Lord?

‭Psalms‬ ‭119:11‬ ‭NIV‬
[11] I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

If we continue to change our way of thinking by paying attention to God’s Word, putting Jesus in the centre of our lives and being accountable to Him all the time, the events that call for repentance will slowly decrease in our lives.

Now that’s a deal worth considering!

Honesty Is The Key

Bible Study, , , ,

HONESTY IS THE KEY

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His word is not in us. (1John 1: 8-10)

I had a recent experience when this Scripture came home to me very vividly. I was in a group of believers and told a story which contained a lie. It came out so unexpectedly that I was caught out and could not wriggle out of it without great embarrassment. On reflection I tried to tell myself that it was nothing and that it didn’t matter, but I could not shake it off my conscience.

This passage of Scripture came repeatedly to my mind. It was not the content of the story that mattered but the fact that I had embellished it with a lie that bothered me. Not even confession to the Lord and taking responsibility for what I had done would give me peace. I knew that I had to own what I had done to a trusted fellow believer.

I am very close to my pastor and I chose to write a letter of confession rather than speak to him because I am able to express myself more freely in a letter. His response was kind and gracious. He said something like this: “Don’t you just love the Holy Spirit? He so gently does everything He can to protect our fellowship with the Father.” That’s it, my dear readers! And the moment I received his message and knew that I had acknowledged my sin to another person, God’s peace once again flooded my heart.

How difficult it is for us to face our sin and own it! Why are we so reticent to acknowledge what we have done when we leave the path of God’s Word and go our own way? John said that we deceive ourselves. Self-deception is just as damaging as Satan’s lies because they have the same source – the devil; and his intention is to disturb our fellowship with the Father and keep us away from enjoying our union with Him.

From God’s perspective, it is not our sin that is the problem – He has taken care of that through the death of His Son. It’s our unwillingness to own it and to come clean with Him. Why do we keep lying to ourselves and to God when we know that He knows our deepest and most intimate thoughts and actions? Pride keeps us from being honest with ourselves and God and robs us of the fellowship we could and should enjoy with Him.

He did everything possible to restore us to Himself so that we could return to the state of innocence and righteousness that Adam and Eve enjoyed before they chose their way above His. It cost Jesus His life to bring us back to the Father. Why do we forfeit the honour of closeness to Him just because we won’t acknowledge that we have sinned?

God is not demanding that we drag up everything we have done since birth. That’s not the issue although some people tag the same refrain onto their prayers over and over again, “And forgive my sins,” as a blanket statement just in case they have forgotten something that God might be holding against them.  Have they forgotten that God has cleaned the record, once for all?

John’s first chapter is about fellowship. What is it that gives us the confidence that we can have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ; and what disturbs our fellowship with Him?

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. 1 John 1: 3

Did you get that? We have fellowship with one another and with the Father and the Son because we know and believe the truth about Jesus. What disturbs our fellowship with one another and with God? Not our sin but our dishonesty. We are still in the flesh and in a fallen world. Sin will still be a part of us until we shed this body and depart for the realm where we are no longer subject to sin.

The Holy Spirit does not convict us of sin; He convicts us of righteousness (John 16: 8-10). He holds up God’s standard of righteousness so that we can come back into line with God’s Word. When we are honest enough to take responsibility for our sin, He responds by washing away our unrighteousness and restoring our fellowship with the Father.

Isn’t that worth a little bit of humility?

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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The World’s Most Heinous Crime!

Bible Study, , ,

THE WORLD’S MOST HEINOUS CRIME!

“‘I admit that I didn’t always hold to this position. For a time I thought it was my duty to oppose this Jesus of Nazareth with all my might. Backed with the full authority of the high priests, I threw the believers — I had no idea they were God’s people — into the Jerusalem jail right and left, and whenever it came to a vote, I voted for their execution. I stormed through their meeting places, bullying them into cursing Jesus, a one-man terror obsessed with obliterating these people. And then I started on the towns outside Jerusalem.'” Acts 9-11 (The Message).

What a list of accomplishments to put on your CV, Paul! What a confession! Religious extremist! Fanatic! Murderer! Terrorist! Talk about a religious war! Paul could have been fighting the cause of any one of the world’s most prominent religions today. They all have the same intention — get rid of believers in Jesus; 165,000 Christians murdered every year. Why? What have they done? Put their faith in the Son of God who was raised from the dead? What kind of a crime is that? Why did he do it?

We have only two options — believe in the God who created us in His image or believe in a god we created in our image. How do we know the difference? By our fruit. We always become like the god we worship. If we worship a god we, or someone else, has created in our image, we reveal the nature of that god by our disposition and behaviour.

Paul thought that he was fighting for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but this God revealed Himself as gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and faitfulness, full of mercy and forgiving sin (Exodus34:6). Does that look like the God he was representing in his murderous hatred of believers?

What was Paul’s problem? He was deceived. “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:4 (NIV). There was nothing wrong with his zeal but everything wrong with what he believed.

Why did God not take him out for his actions against His people? He deserved to die there and then, didn’t he? I suspect that God saw beyond his fanatical persecution of Christians to a passionate desire to serve and please the God he thought he knew. That he went about it the wrong way was not the issue. That could be corrected. That he had a heart for God was a characteristic that could be honed into a loyal and faithful son of God and worshipper of Jesus.

A story in the Old Testament clearly illustrates this principle. Isaac, Abraham’s son, had twin sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau, it seems, was the more pleasant character. He was an outdoor man, a good hunter and a daddy’s boy. His brother, Jacob, like his name meaning “deceiver”, was a scheming, lying, twisted namby-pamby mommy’s boy.

But Esau had an inborn fault — he had no interest in spiritual things. He gave away his right as the firstborn just to fill his belly on the spur of the moment. On the other hand, Jacob coveted his brother’s position as the firstborn and the privileges and advantages that came with it. Through lies and deception he stole his brother’s birthright and the father’s blessing. For a good part of his life he lived by deceiving and being deceived.

But, from God’s perspective, Jacob’s thirst for spiritual realities was a characteristic He could work with, even though he went about it the wrong way. God moved him, slowly but surely, into the place where he was cornered, wanting to go home, but desperately afraid of Esau and the repercussions of his deception. In an all-night struggle with the Angel of the Lord, Jacob surrendered and he was changed, from “deceiver” to “prince with God.” The same zeal that drove him to lie and steal, now drove him to love and obey God.

God is looking for those who yearn for Him, though they may not know it. He will make Himself known to anyone who seeks Him with all his heart.