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 70’s: “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 people don’t think they’ve ever done anything wrong, then 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. People 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 wildness, 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 people 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. 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 morally. 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.
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
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