REPENT – IT’S
THE WAY TO A BETTER VERSION OF ME
I love this
quote from T.L. Osborn, one of the great healing evangelists of the ’70s: “Jesus did
enough! He did enough to even cover the worst thing we can do. He did enough
for ALL mankind, FOREVER. There's nothing we can do to shock Him, scare Him
away, disgust Him so much He'd ignore us. He got tempted by whatever tempts us.
And when He was crucified for all the results of giving in to those
temptations, He took it to the devil and shook it in his face and dumped it off
at the devil's feet: ‘There, finished for all time!’”
Jesus paid the ultimate price for every sin against
nature, against God Himself, against each other, and things we do against
ourselves, as well. But if someone doesn’t think they’ve ever really sinned,
then they don’t believe the Bible, and they’re not going to ask the Lord for
forgiveness because they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong.
People may not be concerned about changing anything they
do or think. Some who can’t say they are truly sorry for anything they’ve done
to God, themselves, or anyone else, will not perceive any need for a savior.
And they don’t think they need a Lord because they believe they’re doing okay
by themselves. They think life’s full of necessary bumps, and they’ll handle it
themselves in their own ways. These people have been taught to accept
themselves as they are. This philosophy is deceptive.
God, our creator, accepts us as we are so that He can
help us change into better. Anyone who believes they can’t be better is being
deceived. And anyone who doesn’t want to be better is also deceived.
To be a better version of ourselves, we need to be
genuinely sorry for things we’ve thought, said, and done in our lives, that we
know in our hearts were wrong. It’s not necessarily shameful that we did them,
but it is shameful never to say we’re sorry about them. Jesus told his
disciples to repent.
The word “repent” is translated from a Greek word, “metanoeo,” which
means to think different afterward, to reconsider morally. It means to change
one’s mind for the better and heartily amend.
Right after the devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness, he
came back, and the first thing he preached was repentance. “From that time Jesus began to preach, and
to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17).
Jesus also
said: “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matt. 9:13). And Matthew
11:20 tells us this about Jesus: “Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein
most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not.”
Repentance is
essential for everyone when they first want to believe in Jesus and want Him in
their lives. They say they’re sorry for all past sins, and they accept
Jesus as Lord of their lives because they know they have not done a very good
job at leading themselves. They believe He took their sins to the cross and
that He even went to hell for them and then was raised from the dead to
everlasting life.
But repentance is an ongoing thing. A lot of Christians
think that repentance is for things like thinking evil of others, being
rebellious, swearing, sexual sins, stuff like that. Yes, those things need to
change, but we also need to repent for thinking too little of ourselves. We are
not to be doormats that people walk over and wipe their dirty boots on!
The older and wiser we get, the more apt to learn about
our past, which means we discover a few new things we need to think differently
about now, things to reconsider Biblically. I know that has been the case with
me. Things I’d written off, things I did where I thought I was right, and
didn’t find out until I was 50 or 60 that I wasn’t right at all. But I found
that when I told God, I was sorry, and I repented of my past ways of thinking,
I experienced new freedom, and it’s been awesome! Heavy loads I didn’t even
know I was carrying were lifted off, and that continues to happen in the
present as well.
God’s will is always that we have a better and better
life physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Repentance is a
significant part of that.
Love, Carolyn
I publish two
every week on FB, WordPress, and Blogger and can send them to an email address
or physical address too.
I sell ALL my
e-books and booklets on Amazon, as well as paperbacks of my first two books.
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