Dear Beloved Reader,
This is the second article I have previous written on another site that I felt was important for us in this nation right now. I am realizing more and more that many in the church do not have a correct understanding of Biblical repentance. This is quite important because with out the Holy Spirit of God convicting our spirit and causing us to have a true repentance, we and our nation will always stay in the condition we are in. This is true also of the church that Jesus birthed as well.
I pray this article will help us understand what true and genuine repentance consists of and that we would be the first ones to truly repent for ourselves, families, cities, states and nation and for the church. Please take these words to heart. They are necessary for this moment in time in the life of the church here in America.
Today's article is going to be about "true" repentance. I understand what the bible says it means, but I want to talk about repentance in reality. As I look at my own life, there are still things in my heart that I know doesn't please God. There are attitudes, habits, mannerism and much more that so contradict the nature of the God I love.
As I have been listening to the Lord for myself, the church, and the nation, I realize that we must truly and genuinely repent. But what is repentance? Is it being sorry for what we have done? Does it come from feeling guilty about what we have done wrong? Is it like getting caught with your hand in the cookie job, and saying to your mom, I am sorry?
Why should we repent? Is it because we were caught in someone's eyes, our own or Gods? I believe the Lord is impressing on my spirit for a nation to repent it has to start with one. I know that may be absurd to your mind, but one person genuinely repenting can change a nation. The Lord reminded me of the prophet Daniel. This man cried and wept over his sin, his forefather’s sins and the sins of the nation. Even though he was righteous in God's eyes and highly favored, he did not see the nation’s sins as theirs and not his. He identified with the sin and the sinners and cried out to God, "We your people, this nation have sinned."
The classical definition of repentance is the feeling or act in which one recognizes and try's to right a wrong. It always includes an admission of guilt, and it also includes at least one promise or resolve NOT TO repeat the offense; an attempt to make restitution for the wrong, or in some way to try to reverse the harmful effects of the wrong where possible.
The word in the Hebrew written in the bible is from two verbs, SHUV, which means "to return", and NICKHAM meaning "to feel sorrow." So the definition in the Hebrew is to turn and feel sorrow of the wrong.
The Greek word also has a meaning. METANOIA is broken up into two words. The first is META meaning "after with." The second NOEO meaning to perceive, think differently. The compound of these two words gives us the Greek meaning, "to think differently after." It is a new afterthought, or a new way of thinking different from the former thinking that caused you to sin. What does a nation need to do to truly repent? Nothing more than one individual needs to do.
It seems to me that in the church the USA, we have a serious problem with repentance that changes our life completely. Many seem to believe that once we repent of our sins and receive Jesus Christ as our savior, we never need to repent again. They believe that their past, present and future sins are wiped out by praying that one prayer. Other Christians recognize the continual need to repent, but don't seem to get the results from their repentance about sin in their life.
They receive very little deliverance from the things that have plagued their life. If they do receive deliverance in an area, there are 10 more popping us in their life, they become hopeless on ever really being free. Lastly, there is the last group of Christians who don't want to repent. They feel sorry for what they have done, as being caught. The idea to truly charge, think and act differently has little place in their life. Each one of these heart conditions keeps us where we are being spiritually sick and powerless.
How does genuine repentance come? I know I need it in my own life. I too often am sorry, but sometimes stumble again and again over the same area of my life. The question is why? Have I truly repented from the sin that still springs up in my heart and life? I am asking these questions to help myself and all that are hearing begin to truly repent. I am praying for a true breakthrough in our lives that would cause us to truly "turn" to God with our whole heart and soul. I know we must turn back to God, but it must begin with "Godly repentance coming from a true Godly sorrow.
When we just say were sorry because we are caught we are not repenting. This is not the broken and contrite heart the Lord's needs to receive His forgiveness and cleansing. So what steps do we need to do, and what does God give us to help us truly repent?
Isaiah 55:7 declares, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Beloved reader, repentance qualifies a man for pardon, but does not entitle him to it. It is a free act of God who will forgive sins even up to a thousand generations.
Repentance brings pardon and forgiveness of sin. Joel 2:13 says, " Rend your heart, and not your garments, (outward change, but not of the heart) and turn to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy."
There is a three-fold idea that exists in true repentance. The first is that "true "repentance must touch the intellect. True repentance brings awareness to the mind that which was done is wrong and not pleasing to God. In Mathew 21:29, the Prodigal son realizes what he has done wrong in his mind as he is eating food that pigs eat. He reasons in his mind that, at first he would not go back to his father, but then he realizes and says, "I will not, but afterward he repented and went."
The son changed his mind and TOOK AN ACTION, he went back to see his father.The second thought is that "true" repentance must touch the emotions. Paul writes to the church in Corinth his feelings when he called them to repent of their sin. 2nd Corinthians 7:9," now I rejoice, not that you were made to feel sorry, but that your sorrow led you to truly repent, for you were made sorrowful in a Godly manner, that you may receive no damage by us." When the publican was in the temple repenting it says that he beat his breast indicating a sorrow of the heart.
The third thought is the "true" repentance must touch your will, or your innermost being. Psalm 51:10 is an example of David's heart cry when the repentance touched his will. "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." David knew that he not only had to say he was sorry with his mind, but with his heart, intellect and will. Verse 11 says, "Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me."
David writes this because he saw King Saul give lip-service repentance for his sins. Saul was afraid of the people and what they thought and his position as King. This lip service repentance of Saul caused the Kingdom to be ripped from him and the Holy Spirit removed from his life. David saw Saul then be given over to an evil-tormenting spirit. David was afraid that this would happen to him because of his broken fellowship with God.
Lastly, how does repentance get produced? A human being is incapable of producing it. I think this is where our true problem is in the church in the USA. We try to repent, we try to change, but we do it in our own strength. Even though we know we can't to be saved, somehow we think the little sins can be removed in our own ability to repent. We are so wrong.
We have a state-wide prayer network in Arizona praying, and repenting, but we are seeing such little fruit of the change God promised for Arizona. Why? I think the question needs to be more personal. Why don't we see a greater change in our own lives, mine included? Maybe we are doing what the church did in Galatia. Paul asks a question to them in Chapter 3:1-3, " Oh foolish Galatians, (foolish Henry) who has bewitched you, (cast a spell over you,) to whom it was made clear that Jesus Christ was put to death on the cross?
Give me an answer to this question, did the Spirit come to you through the works of the law (in your own strength or goodness), or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? having begun your new life in the Spirit, will you now be made complete, (mature, perfect) in the flesh? (depending on what you can do to make yourself better?)
In Acts 11:18, Peter says, "then has God also granted to the gentile’s repentance onto life?" Where did the repentance come from? God! God calls us to repent by the hearing of the Gospel. The message comes with a word, Repent; the Kingdom of God is at hand. This repentance is also a gift from God because it can come only from God into a human heart.
God calls each one of us to repent over each sin in order for each one of us to feel our "inability" to repent and change in our own strength. Therefore: our true forgiveness from our sins that came from God's grace at salvation is the same grace we need to be free from every sin and hindrance in our life. We are unable to produce this, so we must receive from the Lord, the power to repent as an act of grace in our hearts.
One of my spiritual fathers told me to pray for the 'Gift of repentance", or the "Gift of tears". Tears meaning the fruit of a broken heart that God convicts of their sin and helps them turn from it. This same Gift of tears causes us to change our heart and mind to meet what God desires in our life, and without it, we can try to change but we will continually fail.
This is where the church is in USA as well. We are sorry, but we are not pursuing the Lord until He gives the "Gift of Tears" for our own lives, families, church and our nation. Without this gift, we will continually fall short of the Glory of God, but worse we may end up strengthen the very sin we are trying to get rid of. May God today give me, you, the church in the USA, the real "Gift of tears" and turn back to the Lord our God. It just takes one, let it begin with you or I!
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