Skip to main content

Grace is amazing ... and so is the gift of repentance!

"Repentance is godly sorrow for our sins, because of the wrong done to God, and therefore the hurt inflicted on Him (Gen 6:6) ... if there is no conscious repentance, just an acceptance of grace then there is no awareness of what we have been saved from ... which leads to a corresponding lack of depth and commitment ..."

I read this in a book whilst I was at Bible College some 16 years ago. It must have struck me quite powerfully at the time as I wrote it on the inside cover of the Bible I was reading. It resonated with an experience I had recently had of being led by the Spirit into a season of repentance the like of which I had not experienced before. This did indeed lead to a deepening of my faith and a greater commitment to Jesus and the growth of His Kingdom throughout the world ... avery rich time indeed, and foundational in all that has followed.

Up to that point I had been 'saved' some four years, I had experienced the wonder of forgiveness, but had not really appreciated the gift that repentance is, and the fruit that comes when we avail ourselves of the liberty we have in Christ to turn away from things that hurt God, others and ourselves. Thankfully the Spirit led me on a walk along that road and, by grace, I'm still walking it! It's not just a quick polish on the surface every now and again, but a deep work that changes us from the inside out ... often that is a painful process ... but always worth it if we are prepared to walk through it.

I believe this is the key issue whenever we encounter Spiritual 'apathy' - whether it be in groups of people, in other individuals or in our own lives! The Christian faith is much more than a veneer of respectability on an otherwise unchanged life ... it is a root and branch change of motivation, purpose and meaning in life ... Christ being the motivation, the purpose, and the meaning.

I wonder why we choose to nibble on scraps when we could be feasting on the abundant life that is ours?!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Feel free to add comments or ask questions:

Popular posts from this blog

Thoughts from a previous incumbent ...

In reference to 2 Tim 1:7 "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of p o wer, of love a nd of sel f-discipli ne."   Norman Grubb decl are d that; "We are set in our day and generation to be overcomers, not to sail through calm seas but to walk on storms, to replace need with supply, to transform aspiration into realization. The language of defeatism, fear, lack and weakness is not to be in our vocabulary. "Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it. As for these giants, they are bread for us," we say with sturdy Caleb.  We are to act as the men of faith of old; we are to visualize our goal in clear outline; we are to take it for granted that we shall reach it, for we have both the commission and anointing of God?   We lay our plans ,build our organisations, produce our written and verbal pronouncements,  prayer our prayers, do our work, not as those who will fail and fall by the way, but...
2 comments
Read more

What is poverty?

I have been very exercised recently for a number of reasons; 1/ Extended conversations with my teenage children about Sex trafficking (Initiated by the recent LZ7 track!) 2/ The dialogue online concerning the relative merits of Kony2012 campaign. 3/ Spending a morning praying for Street Children in Senegal (Talibes) and Prostitutes in Cambodia. 4/ Recently listening to a Dr M Loyd-Jones podcast - in which he refers to the state of 'apostasy' that the Church had got itself into at the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th Century, as it cared so much for social, justice and poverty issues that it ceased to preach the gospel. (His words of course!) Now, where do my kids find their place in the midst of all of this? Our discussion centred around how meaningful is it to download a track and feel justified that you are doing something about sex trafficking? Is that simply consumer activism ... would we be so concerned to spend our 69p if we weren't getting a download out ...
4 comments
Read more

Labels

Who are you? I have never been a great fan of labels when it comes to describing members of the body of Christ. eg. he is anglican, she is Baptist, they are Charismatic, etc. etc. I remember once causing a man to become increasingly hot under the collar when he asked me who I was? To which I replied I was a disciple (follower) of Jesus. He was meaning which Church did I attend (presumably so he could classify me and decide whether I was bona fide or not) and my answer did not bring him peace, but I refused to go any further.  Why? Because, as I said, I am not a great fan of labels, but also because for me there is a very important distinction between primarily identifying myself with Jesus and identifying myself with Church. Of course, I recognise that by becoming a follower of Jesus I become part of the body of Christ, but that can be very distinct from being a member of a Church. To me this is the crucial difference between vibrant faith and dusty religion.  ...
1 comment
Read more