Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Repent me, Jesus

Romans 7: 15   I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but
   what I hate, I do.

                 7:  21  So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there 
    with me.

It is obviously crucial to be able to repent. Being sorry that we sin is, in part, a
function of our conscience, that part of us that recognizes the difference between
good and evil. Moving on to repentance is the act of turning away from the sins
we commit, heading the opposite direction, if you will, in an attempt to eliminate the
sinful actions from our behavior.

Simple enough, right? Not so much. You recognize the speaker of the Bible verses
above. It is Paul, converted along the Damascus Road by Jesus, himself. Paul, or
Saul of Tarsus, renowned former persecutor of early followers of Christ. Paul, one
of the most intelligent, persistent, hard-nosed characters found in the Bible who
recovered his sight, a changed soul who went on to be the Apostle to the Gentiles.
Paul, whose ability to bring churches into being, preach the gospel and withstand
torture and imprisonment was astounding. Yet, he, Paul, is stating that even he has
tremendous difficulty doing what is righteous. After personal conversion at the
voice of Jesus and acceptance of the Holy Spirit, he still struggles with sin. 

So here's my point. We know that we will never be without sin, no matter how
our heart wishes that we could be. This means that we will constantly be
bombarded by the will to sin, will sin, and then be faced with the need to confess
our sins to God and repent. I am suggesting, with the title of this little blog, that
repentance needs to be done To us,  not By us. We need to pray that God, Himself,
through His Spirit, will be right there with us as we attempt to turn away from
sin. We are asked to look into our own hearts....I agree with the person who called
that looking into a fun-house mirror. We're just not capable of reading our hearts
and our intentions with accuracy. So we need to lean on Jesus...that is lean on His
love and desire to help us become more like Him. Not on our own! We need all the
help we can get. Who better to seek out for this help than the Holy God who created
us. Praise His Holy name!


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