REPENT
In those days came John the Baptist,
preaching in the wilderness of Judea.
And saying,
Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Matthew:3:1-2
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On this first Sunday in the season of Lent we are reminded:
There is no forgiveness without repentance.
We were created for relationship.
Adam and Eve walked in the garden with God.
They talked with their Creator.
Until that relationship was broken by sin.
And even then, God made a way for the sin debt to be satisfied.
Jesus came to die for our sin.
He said on the cross,
“It is finished.”
When we repent and accept God’s gift of salvation that relationship is restored.
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The entrance into the Kingdom
is through the panging pains of repentance
crashing into a man’s respectable goodness;
then the Holy Ghost,
Who produces these agonies,
begins the formation of the Son of God in the life.
The new life will manifest itself
in conscience repentance and unconscious holiness,
never the other way about.
The bedrock of Christianity is repentance.
Strictly speaking,
a man cannot repent when he chooses;
repentance is a gift of God.
The old Puritans used to pray for “the gift of tears.”
If ever you cease to know the virtue of repentance, you are in darkness.
Examine yourself and see if you have forgotten how to be sorry.
Oswald Chambers
My Utmost For His Highest
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There is much that is broken in the world today.
Families, communities, nations,
everywhere you look you find division,
a lack of trust,
broken relationships,
broken laws,
broken systems.
It does not have to be this way.
God has made a way.
Restoration is possible.
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If My people,
which are called by My name,
shall humble themselves,
and pray,
and seek My face,
and turn from their wicked ways;
then will I hear from heaven,
and will forgive their sin,
and will heal their land.
II Chronicles 7:14
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Therefore being justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand,
and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also:
knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
and patience, experience;
and experience, hope
:and hope maketh not ashamed;
because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts
by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
For when we were yet without strength,
in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die:
yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
But God commendeth His love toward us,
in that,
while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us.
Romans 5: 1-8
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