CHOOSING REPENTANCE – Part 3 of 3

If you are tired of the physical, emotional, and spiritual consequences of guilt, these five steps of action will help you develop an attitude of repentance.

1.    Identify areas of your life where you have failed to meet God’s standards. The first step in repentance is an honest evaluation of every part of your life. The Psalmist prayed, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24 NIV)

2.    Acknowledge your failure to God. To humble yourself before God means to sincerely acknowledge your failure and your need for forgiveness.

3.    Accept God’s forgiveness. 1 John 1:9 declares, “If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

4.    Make restitution where necessary. If we have wronged another person, it is necessary for us to seek that person’s forgiveness. And, like Zacheus, monetary restitution might also be in order. Such an action is a sign of genuine repentance.

5.    Turn away from known sin in your life. It is possible to follow the first steps without truly repenting. The word repent carries the idea of turning around… turning from sin to God

You may have been traveling down the road of unresolved guilt for a long time. Don’t be discouraged. There is a way out. Decide you are tired of going in that direction; ask for God’s forgiveness, make any necessary restitution, and turn around.

-- Adapted from “Choose Your Attitude, Change Your Life” (1992) by Robert Jeffress

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CHOOSING REPENTANCE – Part 2 of 3

Contrary to popular opinion, repentance is not an emotion; but it is an attitude that leads to specific action. The Greek word metanoeo, which is translated “repent,” means “to change one’s mind.” The word pictures someone heading in one direction who, because of a change of mind, starts going in another direction. Maybe you have had the experience of driving down a street and suddenly noticing that all of the street signs are backwards and every other car is headed in the opposite direction, including those in your lane! What do you do? You make a quick U-turn and head in the opposite direction in order to avoid some serious consequences. In the same way, repentance both honestly acknowledges failure and causes a change of direction.

Repentance is not a popular topic today, because it requires us to honestly confront sin. None of us likes to be reminded of our faults. As the writer Maurice Samuel put it, “No man loves his alarm clock.” And yet the failure to confront sin can have a much more severe consequence than driving the wrong way down a one-way street or refusing to set an alarm clock. What is the result of not repenting? In a word, guilt.

The Psalmist captures this in Psalm 32:5. “Then I acknowledged my sin to You and I did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.’ And You forgave the guilt of my sin.” 

-- Adapted from “Choose Your Attitude, Change Your Life” (1992) by Robert Jeffress

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CHOOSING REPENTANCE – Part 1 of 3

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, a season the Church sets aside for reflection, humility, and renewed dependence on God. When the ashes are placed on our foreheads, as will be done today in many churches around the globe, we’re reminded of two profound truths: our human frailty and God’s endless mercy. The ashes don’t shame us -- they invite us to honesty. They call us to repent -- to turn FROM the sinful patterns that pull us away from God and to return TO the One who welcomes us with grace.

CHOOSING REPENTANCE – Part 1 of 3

“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”  (Acts 3:19 NIV)

Many years ago, the following note in the thief’s handwriting was found in a stolen Trans Am returned by police to its owner in Los Angeles: “Your CB is in the trunk. The radio is out because I couldn’t stop my friend from taking it (insurance will cover radio). I’m sorry it had to be your car, but I was looking for one and the car lot left the key in and unattended. Your left back tire loses a little air at times. Your brake light comes on a lot and sometimes stays on when you drive (check your brakes.) I hope this didn’t put you out for me taking your car. I would have preferred a dealer’s car. But this was all that was available. Sorry (needs gas).”

Everyone -- including car thieves -- at one time or another faces moral failure. How do we deal with such failure? We have a choice. We can choose to ignore it or we can repent. Repentance is an attitude that chooses to confront sin rather than ignore it. And such an attitude choice is absolutely vital to our physical, emotional, and spiritual health.

Unfortunately, most of us have a limited view of repentance. We tend to think of repentance only in terms of salvation. The word repent conjures up images of some scraggly street preacher announcing the end of the world via a sandwich board. Yet, an examination of Scripture reveals that repentance is an attitude that is more characteristic of Christians than of non-Christians. It is not just a one-time action that ensures heaven after we die.  Instead, repentance is an attitude that confronts and deals with failure in every area of life. Martin Luther understood this truth. The first of the Ninety-five Theses he nailed to the church door in Wittenberg in 1517 read, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘repent,’ He willed that the entire life of believers be one of repentance.” 

-- Adapted from “Choose Your Attitude, Change Your Life” (1992) by Robert Jeffress

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EYES OF COMPASSION

“When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled. So he asked Pharaoh's officers who were with him in custody in his master's house, ‘Why are your faces downcast today?’”  (Genesis 40:6-7 ESV)

Joseph’s suffering gave him eyes of compassion.

In the midst of the storm, do you read the faces of people around you the way Joseph did? Most people wear on their faces what is going on inside of them.

Do you look for friends, coworkers, people who serve you, or children in your life, and notice if their faces are downcast? It is a paradox: Self-preoccupation is actually self-defeating and produces loneliness.

Joseph expressed his heart to his fellow prisoners in a single question: “Why are your faces downcast today?”

Someone noticed them. Someone cared about their lives. Words can do this. Every word you speak boosts someone’s hope a bit, or kills it just a little…

Here’s a little test: During the stormy periods in your life, how often have you expressed genuine concern for others when you have had nothing to gain? 

-- John Ortberg in “If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat”

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ARE YOU OKAY WITH THIS?

The Prophet Jeremiah wrote of good King Josiah, “‘He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know Me?’ declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 22:16)

United Nations health and food organizations calculate that twenty-five thousand people throughout the developing world die every day from starvation and malnutrition.  Are you okay with this?  There are a hundred thirty thousand children up for adoption at any given time in the United States, and millions more children worldwide are without families.  Are you okay with this?  A child dies from drinking contaminated water every twenty-one seconds.  Are you okay with this?  That question can be and must be asked of all suffering and every injustice.  Are you okay with this?

Most of us are okay with it.  And we’re okay with it simply because it’s an issue without a name or a face.  We’ve never held someone who is starving to death.  No one in our family has needlessly died from contaminated water.  We don’t know anybody who has been kidnapped and sold into slavery.  And none of our family members sleeps on the streets.  But once the issue has a name and a face, it changes everything, doesn’t it?  God knows each of those names.  God knows each of those faces.  And it breaks His heart.

So let me ask the question again: Are you okay with this?

If you are in Christ and Christ is in you, you cannot be okay with suffering or injustice or starvation.  Why?  Because His heart is in you.  And His heart beats for the suffering, the victim, the poor, and the needy.  If you are a Christ follower, then you have been drafted into an army of compassion that knows no enemy but those things that break the heart of God.  And it’s not okay to not do something about that.  

-- Mark Batterson in “PRIMAL: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity” (2009)

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