Repentance

Repentance Jesus started his ministry by preaching Repentance. Mark 1: 15 John the Baptist started his ministry by preaching Repentance. Mathew 3:2 The Apostle Paul and others preached repentance. Acts 20: 21 And unfortunately this is one thing that is not preached nowadays, and that is one of the reasons Christendom is in the pathetic state that it is in right now. There is not much difference between professing believers and the people who don’t believe in Christ. We need to get back to the basics and understand what this word really means. Repentance means to turn away from our old ways of living. It is to turn from sin and turn to God. When we see the great things that God has done for us in Christ, that the Son of God himself, the Lord Jesus had to come to this earth to pay the price for our sins by his own blood on a cruel cross, it should make us turn from our rotten sins. The penalty for our sins being death, eternal separation from God. And God in his great mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, sent his Only son that we may have life, have a second chance. Repentance and faith are the foundational elements of the Christian life. Hebrews 6; 1 So we need to make sure that we understand what they mean and practice them in our lives. We live in a fallen world and before coming to Christ, we all lived our own lives. We ruled our lives, living a life that pleased us. True Repentance recognizes the folly of our old life style and acknowledges the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf and turns to God with a willing heart to live a life completely pleasing to God. It’s saying, God I trust in you, I trust in your ways, I trust in your plan for my life, I want to follow you and I surrender all. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Thess.1:9 that Repentance is a turning from idols to the true and living God. An idol could be a job, a hobby, money, comfort, pleasure, a self centered life, basically anything that comes between us and God and anything which is more valuable to us than God. We all have worshiped these things in our unconverted days. True repentance involves that we no longer worship these things, we turn away from them to God. In the story of the Prodigal son, the son came to the father in brokenness and he was willing to do anything that the father told him to do, and that’s what we are called to do. Luke 15: 11-24 Christians have problems in their christian life because they have not repented properly. We need to be honest and acknowledge our sin. Proverbs 28: 13 says that He who conceals his transgressions will NOT prosper but the one who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion. For example, If you lust after a woman/man, the bible calls it adultery; Don’t just say, I was just admiring God’s creation. There are many such things like these. We need to be honest before God and confess our sins and ask his help to turn away from them. Jesus said " Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand" Mark 1: 15 Kingdom of Heaven means the Government of Heaven and Jesus is the king of heaven. So to repent means to live on this earth as citizens of Heaven living in accordance with the principles of Heaven, submitting ourselves to the rulership of the Lord Jesus. Everyone on earth rules their own lives, but when we repent, we are saying that we no longer want to rule our lives but we want to live and abide by the rules of the government of Heaven. Jesus is our Lord, He is our king and we are going to live our life according to the power and guidance of his Holy spirit within us and the word of God. We also need to take care of our past life as much as possible, as the Lord reminds us. Zaccheus in Luke 19: 1-10 willingly said that if had cheated anyone of money, he would repay them. Jesus then said, that Salvation had come to his house. So we see that it’s a very important principle. Repentance and faith are the strong foundation pillars that we are to lay on which our whole christian life will be built. It’s Important then that we take time and settle our past life issues as much as possible as the lord leads us. If we have stolen something from someone, we should return it to them. If we have stolen from our work spots, or have cheated the government of taxes, we must pay them back. You may not be able to pay everything back immediately, you can always pay in installments even if you start with a $1. God accepted Zaccheus the day he decided to pay things back and not after he made all the payments. If you have lied to someone, acknowledge it to them as the lord leads you. If you don’t have the courage to settle something, take a brother along with you. If you don’t know where to pay back because the person has moved or something then return the money to God, as God is the original owner of all money. Numbers 5: 6,8 Sometimes things can be so complicated that we can’t do much. But thank God, he is so merciful that He will accept us if we have a willing mind.2 Cor. 8: 12 We should not in any case allow Satan to condemn us if we are not able to settle any matter right. God accepts us even if are able to do nothing, as long we have a willing mind. The Principle is that we should not have anything in our possession that was wrongfully gained. God’s blessing cannot be on such things and these will be a hindrance to our progress in our Christian walk. I am not saying that we should torture ourselves by looking into our past, but we should settle those things that the Lord reminds us. If we have hurt someone, we should apologize. We should also seek God’s help to forgive all people who have hurt us. If we don’t forgive others, the Lord will not forgive us. Mathew 18: 35 and Satan will take advantage of us. 2 Cor. 2: 10,11 If you have gotten involved in New age, or the occult, or any other contact with Satan, you must renounce those things, destroy and not sell any materials used in witchcraft etc Acts 19; 19 and give your testimony to Satan that you now belong to Jesus Christ, and that He is the Lord and savior of your life now. Resist him in Jesus name and he will flee from you. James 4: 7 We need to walk in this way each and every day of our lives.