Repentance

Matthew 4:1, 17 (NIV)

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil... From that time on Jesus began to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."

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Recap:

- Submitting to God, like submitting a test, means completely giving ourselves to Him to be judged, without taking anything back.

- The Bible is our textbook, which we can study to learn how God wants us to live.

- Jesus, the perfect student, sacrificed Himself to give His friends an answer key so we can properly interpret the Bible.

- Obedience to God's Word is the proof that we are actually one of Jesus' friends. If we aren't one of his friends, we can become one by getting to know Him better and by changing our actions...

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Repentance. It's a topic that isn't really talked about all that much in the Western church anymore, in part because of people who preached it without love. Fire and brimstone, condemnation on all sinners, eternal suffering with hell - all of these things are true, but so often they were the emphasis of the message, while the promised salvation to all who believe was treated like an afterthought. If I had to speculate as to why, these teachers thought the most effective way to bring people to Christ was to scare them away from the consequences, like a donkey beaten with a rod.

In comparison, much of the modern church has gone too far in the other direction, like a carrot that the donkey can never reach. We have been preaching grace and salvation without consequence and, as I've been discovering lately, this has weakened the church. We are now so scared of scaring people away from the demanding reality of the gospel that we are no longer giving them the full gospel.

The truth is, God demands our all. He calls us to give everything to Him, including our sin. That means that from the moment we become Christians, we should be leaving our old selves at the door and walking away from it. It's not to say that we won't relapse at times, but it does mean that at all times we fight sin's pull in order to draw closer to God and become more like Him. We obey.

If you aren't sure whether or not it's the truth, look at the two verses I've put above. After Jesus comes out of His temptation in the desert to begin His ministry, the very first thing which He teaches is repentance of sin. The same is true for John the Baptist, who came before Him; Peter, Paul, John, and Jude who came after (among others); even all of the Old Testament prophets were repeatedly calling the people of Israel to turn away from their sins and come back to God.

Repentance isn't a vague notion that we need to do the right thing. While doing some research for this this morning, I found this definition: "To repent is to respond to an inner, or spiritual, perception of the need to make a decision to change the direction of one's life." (https://www.studylight.org/language-studies/greek-thoughts.html?article=58) In other words, repentance is a complete change of perception to the point that we realise we NEED to change our actions and come close to God. Not should. Not want to. It is an absolute necessity.

Like I mentioned, the OT prophets constantly called the Hebrews to give up their sins. In their case, it was worshipping Asherah and Baal, two of the false 'gods' of the surrounding nations. Their idol worship was obvious, taking the forms of wooden poles and metal statues. Our idolatry is far more deadly, because it has found a way of rooting itself in our lives without needing an obvious physical representation, so we can be caught up in it without ever realising. At its core, though, idolatry is anything that takes God's place as our sole highest priority in our lives. What does that look like for you? Food for thought.

If we don't know what we're going wrong, though, how are we supposed to identify it? Even more difficult, how are we supposed to break free of it and put God back in first place? We would never have a hope on our own, but God has sent us an Advocate to help us. Tomorrow, we will be looking at the role of the Holy Spirit as our tutor.