REPENT AND TURN TO CHRIST

"This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus,…" (1 Timothy 2:3-5 NRSV

Repeatedly in Scripture, God calls people to repent, turn to Him, choose the path of life, and do the right thing. These calls seem to indicate that we are not mere puppets, but that human beings, by the grace of God, have the ability to choose good or evil, faith or unbelief.

[In the 1700's John] Wesley spent his life traveling by horseback, in his later years by carriage, to nearly every town and village across England and at times into Ireland, Scotland, and Wales offering Christ to sinners. During the many years when he was rejected by his colleagues and not permitted to preach in their churches, he would go to the center of town where often there stood a "market cross," and from its steps he would preach to the crowds. He preached atop gravestones, including his own father's, and on hilltops and anywhere else he could draw a crowd and be heard.  He was beaten, harassed, and at times pummeled with eggs, rotten vegetables, and even rocks. He did this for decades. Why? Because he believed that God "desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."

-- Adam Hamilton in Revival: Faith as Wesley Lived It


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