proverbs 1.23 Turn at my rebuke;
Surely I will pour out my spirit on you;
I will make my words known to you.
acts 3.19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.
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the word “repent” does not play well in popular culture. why is that? >>
Everyone wants everything to be okay. It’s post-modernism at the core. The lack of a universal, absolute truth. People hunger for it, but in not finding it they lose hope in it and go after their own desires.
Repentance is dangerous for people. Admitting you are wrong is not enough. To actually desire change. To desire restoration through repentance. That is what irritates people.
yeah it’s become a catch-22 for so many who set out to really touch the world with the power of the gospel. they start to preach the contact point of the kingdom of God – which is Jesus’ call to repent/turn/confess/be converted. then the world cues them that it doesn’t want to be communicated with in those terms, right?
Most definitely. It struck me as I read Matthew the other day.
John the Baptist: Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Then a chapter later,
Jesus: Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
It’s the same message throughout history. God has always desired a broken and contrite heart. Someone aware of their lack and as a result utterly dependent upon the Lord for mercy and salvation.
Here’s a question though. What about the everyday? How do we translate a lifestyle of humble repentance into the way we have our being? (So that we are the thing in itself—the repentant life in itself—and it’s not just something that we do on a weekly or even daily basis.) How might I live that out at work or at school?
good question. what jumps up immediately is..
un-repentance would be “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way.”
and then…Jesus saying things like “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me,” or john saying “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
so once we turn…repent…are converted/changed – we’re to walk specifically in one direction. Paul said it like this: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Peter said it like this: “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps, Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth”…that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”
this seems like such a simple powerful practical thing to live and preach – so let me bring it back to my first question: why is the world cuing us not to speak this way?…and how are we responding?