Tag: Biblical

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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1. He questioned the word of God to inspire doubt in God’s word. “Has God indeed said?” (Gen 3:1)

2. He questioned God’s goodness “you shall not eat of every tree”. (Gen 3:1) Perverting God’s words, he inspires doubt about God’s goodness.

– Both these doubts are attacks on the mind of man today.

3. He aroused her emotions by contradicting the Word of God. “You shall not surely die”. Satan knows that bold lies built on a foundation of mistrust laid earlier are effective means of temptation.

4. He appeals to her imagination. “You will be like God!”, “You will be enlightened, knowing good and evil” were Satan’s promises to her if she ate the forbidden fruit.

Satan uses the same strategy today to entice people into sin.

Eve was guided not by her spirit, nor by the word of God, but by her soul and body. The lust of the flesh “the tree was good for food” (Gn 3:6a), the lust of the eyes “it was pleasant to the eyes” (v6b) and the pride of life “desirable to make one wise” (vs 6c). It is these three factors which we must overcome in our warfare with sin and Satan today. Jesus overcome all three in the wilderness when tempted by Satan (see Mt. 4:1- 11; 1Jn 2:16).

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God had given to Adam only one restriction. “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.” (Gen 2:16-17). Adam’s obedience to God hinged on believing, trusting, respecting and obeying that one commandment of God. After Eve was created, Adam must have told Eve about this command. But Eve listened more to the voice of the serpent (the devil) than to the voice of her husband. She took the fruit and ate it. (See Gen. 3:1-8). Adam knew that his wife was lost because she was deceived by the serpent. Adam was not deceived (2 Tim 2:14). He deliberately rebelled against God, choosing to join his wife in sin rather than to cling to God. On that day they both died, spiritually. All the descendants of Adam now are born spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1). And spiritual death paves the way for eventual physical death, which brings to judgment and eternal condemnation those who have rebelled against the great God.

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Some ask, “If God is good and all-knowing and all-powerful, why did he make things so that there could be so much evil and suffering in the world? He knew that it would be that way! So why?” The answer lies in the value God places on having sons who love him. Love without the possibility of experiencing rejection is not possible. A computer or robot cannot love. God considered that it was better to have real sons even if it meant so much suffering to exist in the world. God’s values may be different to ours, but they are right! Also, He wanted his sons to put Satan and his dark powers, the leaders of rebellion against God, to shame! (Eph. 3:10,11). It needed to be eternally demonstrated that all alternatives to God’s will were foolish!

Now Adam and Eve did reject God – by rejecting His Word – and succumbed to the temptation to be morally independent of God. We do the same every time we choose our own way in contradiction to the Word of God. But God’s plan to have sons and daughters was not stopped by this act of high treason, as we will see later. But for now we will look at the beginning of sin in humans and some of the consequences of that sin.

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God, as we have seen previously, is a good God. He wants to share all His goodness and all He has with us, because He loves us.

“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirits that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” (Rom. 8:16,17).

The true children of God inherit all things in Christ because of God’s great love and generosity to His children.

“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:17). God is not holding back. He is a rich Father who will give you what you need and more! The more you believe this, the more you will see it in your life!

We should pray because God will give good things to those who ask Him! (Matthew 7:7-11)

God’s Will for us is good. God’s will is not defined as anything that happens, but what He declares is His desire for us in His Word, which is also His Will. His Will includes:

1. His commandments (what He wants us to do and how He wants us to be)

2. His Promises (What He wants to do for us).

We will now take a brief look at God’s will for His children – first in the natural order, then in the spiritual (1 Corinthians 15:46)

God’s will is healing and health for his children ( Ex 15.26; Ps 103.3; 3Jn 2; Is 53:4,5; 1 Pet. 2:22; Acts 10:38). For further understanding of this part of our salvation in Christ, study the lesson entitled “The Good News“.

God’s will is prosperity (having all you need and more for you, your family, and your ministry) ( 3 John 2; Is. 48:17; Pr. 10:22; 2 Cor 9:8),

God’s will is that we know forgiveness (1 Jn 1:8,9)

God’s will is that we may not sin (1 John 2:1). He desires that we be obedient in all things that He reveals to us (Php 2:12,13).

God’s will is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17), hope (positive expectation of good) and faith (Rom 15:13) to be permanent characteristics of our life.

God’s will is that we be filled with love (Romans 5:5)

God’s will is deliverance for his children. In Matthew 15:26 Jesus calls deliverance from evil spirits “the children’s bread”. That is the very basic thing that anyone would provide for his children – bread.

The problems that we and others experience therefore is not due to God’s will. The problem is with us. Are we are willing to agree with His Will, to be submissive members of His family, to co-operate with Him, to receive His love and to obey His Word through His grace and power? Every person should consider carefully their own attitude on this point.

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