The series will cover:
Repentance – Not just for specific
sins, but for your way of doing life.
Jesus – Not just 'Deity.'
Jesus – Not just 'Deity.'
God Himself – He doesn't just give you spiritual growth.
Drinking from God Himself – Are you
doing it?
The Everyday Miracle of Life - Have you grown old and boring?
So, here goes the first one:
REPENTANCE
Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites
who were instructing the people said to them all,
“This day is sacred to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.”
For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.
Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to
those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord.
Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
The Levites calmed all the people, saying,
“Be still, for this is a sacred day. Do not grieve.”
Nehemiah 8:9-11
Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown to the ground before the
ark of the Lord, remaining there till evening...The Lord said to Joshua,
“Stand up! What are you doing down on your face? Israel has sinned...
...Go, consecrate the people."
Joshua 7:6-11
Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites
who were instructing the people said to them all,
“This day is sacred to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.”
For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.
Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to
those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord.
Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
The Levites calmed all the people, saying,
“Be still, for this is a sacred day. Do not grieve.”
Nehemiah 8:9-11
Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown to the ground before the
ark of the Lord, remaining there till evening...The Lord said to Joshua,
“Stand up! What are you doing down on your face? Israel has sinned...
...Go, consecrate the people."
Joshua 7:6-11
It is our self-focus that makes us want to lie down and berate ourselves before God. God's call for us is to get up, stop making such a scene, consecrate ourselves to him, let God point out our sin and then put it to death ruthlessly, and rejoice in His cleansing.
Repentance is from the Greek word metanoia - literally, to change (meta) your mind (noia). Sadly, the Latin translation of the Bible translated metanoia as penance - an act of paying for your sins, essentially, by righteous deeds that proved how sorry you really were. (This was totally wrong).
When I was younger, I thought I repented plenty. Every time I sinned, I felt horrible, and begged God to forgive me. I beat myself up - "How could you do that again! You are so stupid! You have no self-control!" I even asked God to kill me if I didn't stop sinning. Graciously, God ignored my sincere theatrics.
To me, Jesus had died for my sins, and now out of gratitude, I should try to live a life that honored Him. But I usually didn't, so I spent a lot of time repenting, feeling bad, and "trying harder." I thought the "weep and wail" of James 5:1 was for me any time I sinned (note: It's not. Generally weeping and wailing is reserved for when judgement has already been pronounced by God. For those covered by Jesus' death, there is no condemnation).
To me, repentance was a work that I did to get me to the place where God would then cleanse me through His grace. I thought I had to feel guilty enough, to really realize how bad my sin was, before God would really forgive and cleanse me. I knew I had already been forgiven in an overall sense, just not in a 'right-now' sense.
To me, repentance was a work that I did to get me to the place where God would then cleanse me through His grace. I thought I had to feel guilty enough, to really realize how bad my sin was, before God would really forgive and cleanse me. I knew I had already been forgiven in an overall sense, just not in a 'right-now' sense.
What I didn't realize was that all this emotional self-flagellation was fueled by the false idea that I had to be good enough. I knew that as a follower of Jesus' I had trusted Jesus to pay for my sins, and I was "justified by faith" (Romans 4:5). And I knew that I should live a holy life. But I had not realized the truth that "the righteous shall live by faith" (Galatians 3:12). I had no idea what that meant, but I probably thought that it meant we should try hard to trust God and obey Him. -sigh- How little I knew of what it really meant to trust God and give up on myself.
CS Lewis wrote:
The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says “Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.”
Both harder and easier than what we are all trying to do. You have noticed, I expect, that Christ Himself sometimes describes the Christian way as very hard, sometimes as very easy. He says, “Take up your Cross”—in other words, it is like going to be beaten to death in a concentration camp. Next minute he says, "My yoke is easy and my burden light." He means both. And one can just see why both are true.
…The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self – all your wishes and precautions – to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call “ourselves,” to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be “good.” We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way – centred on money or pleasure or ambition – and hoping, in spite of this to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do. As he said, a thistle cannot produce figs. If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown.
A life of faith is characterized by depending on God - it's throwing yourself into his care, that is, entrusting your self - your entire self - to him. The opposite kind of life is a life lived by self-dependence - "trying hard" - trying to keep God's moral rules 'on your own steam.' Self dependence might manifest itself by feeling really bad when you don't 'measure up', or by trying hard to feel guilty so as not to make the same bad decision in the future. Guilt won't make you holy. Guilt won't help you repent. Repenting doesn't require guilt.
The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says “Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.”
Both harder and easier than what we are all trying to do. You have noticed, I expect, that Christ Himself sometimes describes the Christian way as very hard, sometimes as very easy. He says, “Take up your Cross”—in other words, it is like going to be beaten to death in a concentration camp. Next minute he says, "My yoke is easy and my burden light." He means both. And one can just see why both are true.
…The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self – all your wishes and precautions – to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call “ourselves,” to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be “good.” We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way – centred on money or pleasure or ambition – and hoping, in spite of this to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do. As he said, a thistle cannot produce figs. If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown.
A life of faith is characterized by depending on God - it's throwing yourself into his care, that is, entrusting your self - your entire self - to him. The opposite kind of life is a life lived by self-dependence - "trying hard" - trying to keep God's moral rules 'on your own steam.' Self dependence might manifest itself by feeling really bad when you don't 'measure up', or by trying hard to feel guilty so as not to make the same bad decision in the future. Guilt won't make you holy. Guilt won't help you repent. Repenting doesn't require guilt.
When I am resting in God's love and forgiveness, that is when I feel most grieved about the times I have turned my back on God. It's like having a wonderful time with a friend after you have wronged them and been forgiven - it is then, in the embrace of their friendship, that you most poignantly recognize how much you value their friendship. It's not by standing far away and telling them how awful you have been. "Changing your mind" means you stop focusing on trying to feel guilty, or unsatisfied, or remorseful, and just turn to God's love recklessly and wholeheartedly.
Brother Lawrence wrote:
...when I fail in my duty, I readily acknowledge it, saying, 'I am used to doing so: I shall never do otherwise, if I am left to myself.' If I fail not, then I give GOD thanks, acknowledging that it comes from Him.
All possible kinds of mortification, if they were void of the love of GOD, could not efface a single sin. We ought, without anxiety, to expect the pardon of our sins from the Blood of JESUS CHRIST, only endeavoring to love Him with all our hearts.
Final thoughts: Don't beat yourself up if you sin. You sinned because you had already wandered from Jesus, and then fell prey to temptation, as you always will when you wander. Stay close to Jesus, or run back to Him, but don't waste your time beating yourself up. God hasn't told you to, and it won't do you any good. Change-your-mind about life by determining to simply stay with Jesus. When you do sin, see it only as a symptom of having wandered and a signal that you need to return to the One who is calling you. Emotional self-abuse will not give you the victory... but you can find strength in the joy of being in God's presence.
Brother Lawrence wrote:
...when I fail in my duty, I readily acknowledge it, saying, 'I am used to doing so: I shall never do otherwise, if I am left to myself.' If I fail not, then I give GOD thanks, acknowledging that it comes from Him.
All possible kinds of mortification, if they were void of the love of GOD, could not efface a single sin. We ought, without anxiety, to expect the pardon of our sins from the Blood of JESUS CHRIST, only endeavoring to love Him with all our hearts.
Final thoughts: Don't beat yourself up if you sin. You sinned because you had already wandered from Jesus, and then fell prey to temptation, as you always will when you wander. Stay close to Jesus, or run back to Him, but don't waste your time beating yourself up. God hasn't told you to, and it won't do you any good. Change-your-mind about life by determining to simply stay with Jesus. When you do sin, see it only as a symptom of having wandered and a signal that you need to return to the One who is calling you. Emotional self-abuse will not give you the victory... but you can find strength in the joy of being in God's presence.
"Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength."
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