Category: Biblical

Think about that regarding yourself and where you are today.   Have you done this yet?

The most significant moment in anyone’s life is when God begins to deal with you about repentance. But if you shrug your shoulders and say “well I’m not interested, maybe later”…there’s no guarantee that God will deal with you again,
or that you’ll get another tomorrow.

The most critical moment in anyone’s life is when God deals with your heart. When he says “Come back to me.  I’m willing to take you back.  I love you, I want you.”

One thing you can see throughout the bible that really makes God angry is despising God’s grace. He’s saying to you now: Come to me. Turn to me and let me help you.

If you’ve never known the forgiveness of God that is found through Jesus’s death on the cross and his resurrection, He invites you to come to Him and believe. He paid the ultimate price by laying down His life, as an atonement for your sins to be pardoned by God’s grace for whoever will put their trust in Him alone. Not Jesus plus other religions, or gods, idols, or sins.

But you’ve got to repent and ask Him in; trust what Jesus did on the cross for you (even if you don’t understand it all yet), and stop trying to be ‘good enough’ for God. You and I will never be good enough- if we could have then Jesus never would have needed to die for us.

If you’ve once known Jesus Christ as His son or daughter and you’ve backslidden (walked away from God into sin), come back to Him now. Don’t wait.  Repent of your wayward heart.

Either way, I hope you will take some time with Almighty God who is right there by your side now- waiting. Use your own words to repent- turn back to Him everyday for strength and relationship, and away from the life of sin.

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1) TRUE REPENTANCE is based on a recognition that we have sinned.
It is the supernatural power of God that has been placed in the gospel, which enables a person to repent. (God’s saving Grace)

2) TRUE REPENTANCE also involves a recognition that we are responsible to turn from our sins to God.
Repentance is an inner change of mind resulting in an outward turning back, or turning around,
to face and to move in a completely new direction.

This turning around has three elements.
A turning from sin and dead works, a turning to God, and an intent to serve Him and to obey His commands.

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There is one parable that Jesus told, which is the most vivid and perfect illustration of true repentance.

It is the parable of the prodigal son, and somebody else has said it should be called the ‘caring father.’ (If you’re a woman reading this who have been unfaithful in your marriage, then you’re like me as I was the prodigal daughter at one time.)

Luke 15:11-32

The second son, from a wealthy family, decided to get all his inheritance now. So he went off to a distant country and lived it up in sinful things and sinful living. After he spent his inheritance, a famine came, and the only job he could get was feeding the pigs.

Here he is, in rags, feeding the pigs- hungry and longing to eat the slop that the pigs were eating.

Then this is what happens- in verse 17: “But when he came to himself, he said”….

that’s the main point- you have to come to yourself– your moment of truth,
see yourself as you really are and as God sees you and what He wants for you.

Luke 15: 17  “When he came to himself, he said ‘how many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father and will say to him ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I’m no longer worthy to be called your son.  Make me like one of your hired servants.”

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There’s 2 Main languages of the Bible: the Greek of the New Testament and Hebrew of the Old Testament. Each of all those languages has a specific word for repent- but only if we put the two languages together, do we get the full meaning of repentance.

The Greek word for repent, in secular language, is always translated- “to change your mind; to change the way you think.”

So first of all, repentance is changing your mind about the way you’ve been living.

For example:  “I’ve been living to please myself  and I’ve been doing my own thing and from now on I’m going to live to please Jesus my Savior.”

It’s a decision, as I said, it is not an emotion. You can repent without any obvious emotion, but you cannot repent without a change of your will.

The Hebrew word for repent means literally “to turn around”.

You’ve been facing the wrong way with your back to God- you turn 180 degrees and face God saying “God I’m sorry for my sins.  God here I am, tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

So you put the two together, and you have a complete picture of repentance.
Change your mind and change the way you’re thinking about your sin; then turn around toward God telling Him your sorrow for sinning against Him.

Faith comes only AFTER repentance.

The whole message of the bible is in this order: Repent and Believe.

I believe there are a lot of people who are struggling for faith. The truth is you’re not struggling for faith, you’ve never met the condition of repentance. You see, it’s the first of the six foundational doctrines and if you don’t have that foundational stone in place, the rest of what you’re building upon in your spiritual life will always be wobbly.

Preacher Derek Prince says “I have counseled hundreds of Christians, who come with their personal problems. After a lot of experience, I came to this conclusion; at least 50% of the problems that professing Christians are having is because they have never truly repented. They have never really changed their mind.  They never really made a decision to the Lordship of Jesus in their life.

They’re still thinking of decisions from this point of view:  “now if I do this-what will it do for me?  If I do that-what will it do for me?”

When you’ve repented, that’s not the way you think. You think “If I do this, will it glorify Jesus? if I do that, will it glorify Jesus?”

And so we have many,many people who are double-minded. The Bible says a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. (James 1:8) He doesn’t have a solid foundation, so he can’t produce a stable building.

So, I encourage you to take a few moments and ask yourself-
“have I ever really truly repented? Or am I double-minded?”

Is it: “On Monday my aim is to please Jesus. On Tuesday my aim is to please myself.” ? See, you have the worst of both worlds. Because a double-minded person is like living with a split-personality.  It’s pure confusion to live that way.

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I’ve seen many times, some preachers will seek to work people up into an emotional attitude, and then call them to faith in Christ by praying a ‘sinners prayer’.

Very often, that leads to a let down, because when the emotion runs out- they’re left with nothing… no real transformation into becoming a new creation in Christ because they based it on an emotion.

So keep in mind- repentance as defined in the Bible is not an emotion. It is a decision that doesn’t spring from the emotions,  it springs from the will.

If we can reach people’s will (or our own) and turn that will,  we’ll see permanent conversions.

Many so-called conversions in the church today are not permanent because they had never really changed their will. They had an emotional experience- they got excited.

Maybe they felt wonderful for a few weeks or months or even years, but in the end they don’t have what it takes to go through because their will was not touched.

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We’re also going to look at the perfect illustration that Jesus gave of what true repentance looks like.

We don’t hear too much about sin or repentance these days.

It seems like many would like a ‘feel good message’,
but this is one of the most important things you can learn, and practice, in your life.

First, it’s important we understand what repentance really is, and what it is not.

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Perhaps you’re here because you’re at the end of your own proverbial rope.
Maybe adultery has touched your life in some way and you’re facing a huge mess now. If you’re the one who was unfaithful, this post is for you.

We can be at such a loss in trying to sort through all the hurt and destruction from our choices that it’s hard to know where to start.

How do you put your life back together, heal broken hearts (that you broke),
and find some semblance of self-respect, healing and peace again?

It’s a process, my friend.

But the first step is always repentance.
Repentance to God, and then your spouse.

You might think talking about God, repentance, or anything spiritual, is not relevant to an affair recovery website; or that affairs have nothing to do with God talk. I disagree. It has everything to do with God.

Because if we understood how our sins hurt us, and hurt God and our relationship with God and our eternity… we would want to repent of them and allow God’s love and forgiveness to bring healing.

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Rebellion is related to pride and is the refusal to submit to God’s authority and it is the spirit which leads men to do wicked things which hurt God’s heart. Let us remember that God is good, wise and righteous. Rebellion against God then, is stupid and evil. It is wrong. It deserves to be punished, isolated, eradicated for the good of God and the whole Universe.

It is the rebellious nature in man that makes him want to disobey God’s word and do his own thing. This rebellious nature must be put to death before man could ever become a loving, trusting obedient son of God.

Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, according to God’s Word. (1 Sam 15:23). God hates it intensely and will never accept it. It is not right to rebel against God, because God is good and just and never makes bad decisions. The rebel considers he knows better than God. It is this pride which causes him to refuse to listen to the word or voice of God. Cutting himself off from God’s wisdom, the rebel is a fool. He is the fool mentioned in the book of Proverbs. Those who don’t listen to God’s word can never please God. You must make up your mind which you prefer – the spirit of rebellion or the spirit of obedience to God. If you want to know God and be forgiven you must lay down your rebellion and admit that you were wrong in it. This means going a different way to the rest of the world which is led by this spirit of rebellion against God. You must make the choice.

Many people are shocked and offended by this kind of black and white teaching. Many consider themselves quite good – and certainly not deserving any kind of condemnation. The next lesson on the law of God, however, reveals something of the standard which God calls for from us, who owe our existence and prosperity and all that we enjoy to God and His creative power. We should consider ourselves at least once in our life in the light of God’s Law – before deciding whether we think we need a Saviour or not.

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The consequences of this rebellion against God affected not only Adam and Eve, but also all their descendents. Adam “begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth” (Gen 5.3). Now God’s image in man was perverted, and that perverted image was multiplied through procreation. We all became “children of wrath” (Eph 2:3), “sons of disobedience” in whom Satan, now “the prince of the power of the air”, worked (Eph 2:2)

Even religious people are not exempt from this. Jesus said to the religious Jews of His day: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.” (John 8:44).

John said: “In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practise righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.” (1 Jn 3:10)

So not all men are children of God as some would say. We have to be adopted into God’s family as sons. (Gal 4:5). This happens through repentance and faith in God. We are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:26). Those without faith in Christ Jesus therefore are not sons of God.

Fallen mankind are under the curse. (Ex 20:5; Deut. 28:15ff). The wrath (anger) of God abides on them. (Jn 3:36; Rom. 1:18). They are on their way to hell (Ps. 9:17; 2 Thes. 1:8,9). They are slaves of sin (Rom. 6:20), children of wrath (Eph 2:3), strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in the world (Eph 2:12). Who then can be saved? With man it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible (Matthew 19:25-26).

It took Jesus Christ Himself to save man out of this mess. Adam had received dominion from God in the garden but when he obeyed Satan he gave this authority to rule over the affairs of earth in large measure to Satan. Satan became his god. (2 Cor. 4:4). This is why the world is in such a mess today – because people are still believing the devil’s lies instead of God’s word. Instead of receiving the promised enlightenment, Adam and Eve became spiritually blind and cut off from God. Sin separates from God, the wages of sin is death. (Is. 59:1,2; Rom 3:23) Sin is not just an act. It is an attitude of the heart – the attitude of rebellion.

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