Well for me, the answer lies within the first words Jesus preached from Matthew 4:17:
From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”
The essence of Christian faith is grace. We learn in Ephesians 2:8, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” With grace comes the forgiveness of Jesus for any and all things from our past. We start with a clean slate.
Repentance tends to be an evil word to those outside of the faith. It is misunderstood. I know when I was living as an atheist, I would hear people talk about repenting and seeking forgiveness, but in my mind there was nothing I felt I needed to be forgiven for. Now as a follower of Christ, there are many things I do and think about that I need to seek forgiveness for. However, repentance isn’t just about being forgiven. It goes much deeper than that. When one repents it must be a turning away from that which is wrong and then turning towards that which is right. We then must continue to deal with moving towards what is right. That is the difficult part.
When I first came to faith I made a commitment to God. In that commitment I asked for forgiveness and as a result I have never been made to feel guilty for anything from my past. All of my hurt and pain and emptiness was replaced with the grace and love of Jesus. That’s the great part! However, that’s been Jesus’ part of the commitment. He has remained true to that. My part of the commitment hasn’t been so true. I didn’t merely ask for forgiveness–instead, I made a commitment to repent.
In what others may see as a nasty word, I find beauty. When I feel the burden to turn away from doing things that I should not do, I know there is someone there to take those burdens away from me and to help guide me in the right direction. God did not create me in order to watch me fail. He reunited with me and called me into his embrace so that I could know true life. That life is filled with ups-and-downs, joy and pain, gain and loss. However, this new life I’ve been given has meaning and purpose and I need to always direct my eyes towards God and remember what he first called me to do–repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.
Repentance can seem like a scary thing. It may require us to turn away from something like causing physical harm to another human being, or it can be something as simple as being judgmental or speaking negatively about someone unjustly. No matter how big or small, turning away from something we know we shouldn’t do and honoring our commitment to then focus on doing only what we know is right is something that God requires from us. It’s our part of the commitment. If we truly believe we are in a relationship with God through Jesus, then we all know that there are two parts to any relationship.
Have you honored your part of your relationship with God lately? Not the part of doing what you feel he has called you to do or taking when he has extended his hand to you? I mean the part of your relationship where Jesus asks you to repent and come closer towards him and you look into your heart and seek to turn away from the things he wants you to.
Maybe you have felt the pain of carrying around a huge weight on your shoulders and you have not known how to be removed from it. It may be such a part of you now that you can’t imagine living a day without it being heavy on your heart. As difficult as it may be to imagine, won’t you just ask Jesus to come into your life and remove it? Nothing else has worked so far, because knowing Jesus is the only way. Know that God didn’t create you to be a table for heavy burdens. He created you to rise above all things and equipped you with the strength to get through it and to know joy through his spirit residing within you. Asking him into your heart and seeking new life may seem like a stretch of the imagination at first thought, but you’ll find that once that thought enters your mind, you won’t be able to forget about it. It eventually feels like the right thing to do. Go with it. Talk to God. Lift up your burdens to him. Tell him what you’ve been carrying around and ask him to forgive you of it and take away the pain. He will do it. In fact, he already knows about it. It’s not new news to him. However, he has not sat in judgment of you, nor will he cause you to feel guilty. He just wants you to come to know him and seek to live a new life walking together with him.
For all that Christ has done in my life, it is so easy to talk about the good things. However, it’s not so easy to talk about the bad things. As the one that has brought some bad things into my relationship with God, it is time for me to shun those things and do my best not to look to doing them again. Today is the day that I take time with God and repent from doing some things that I need to stop doing. It may cause some distance between me and some others, but it’s a small price to pay to honor my commitment to the Lord. It isn’t about guilt–it’s about God’s kindness that leads me to this place of repentance. Lord, I ask that you give me the strength to confess those things that I want to turn away from and that you give me the strength to never go back them. May it be so for all those that come to you on this day seeking your love and kindness and turning their backs on those things that need to be left in the past.
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