The Heart of Repentance

The heart of repentance

I just felt really led to read Matthew, so I turned to Matthew 3:1-10

Like I want to learn from Jesus’ life and how he lived. This passage actually focuses on John the Baptist preparing the way. And it struck me, the first thing he says is “ repent”. It’s not believe God’s love, it’s not about any social issue or something that may have been relevant of the time but repent.

Repent is relevant to the human condition not just the specific culture. And John goes into saying Repent for the kingdom is at hand. And in a later verse he says bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Repentance is tied to the kingdom and bearing fruit. And yet, if I am honest with myself, it is one of the things I don’t think about often. Pray, forgive, read the Bible, do all the holy good stuff ya know, yet I never honestly prioritize repenting and I think that speaks volumes about hmmm maybe my pride and indifference to God’s holiness a lot of the times. I would argue that repentance is connected to God’s attribute of holiness because we are not holy (outside of Christ). Yet it is because of christ our repentance has any weight, not to disregard our standing before God when we are in Christ, but to say that we can repent with confidence because we know that what we confess and repent, Jesus has already forgiven and still freely and abundantly forgives. ( 1 John 1:9). It’s an interesting thing to evaluate our prayers and the type of prayers we pray for one another and for ourselves. Do we pray for everything the world would ask for? I’ll be the first to confess that I am quick to ask God to grant me a relationship, for health, and then sprinkle “ for his glory” thinking I really desire that. But this verse really has helped me see how God is challenging in this season, the idols I’ve held for so long and to truly see that they are broken cisterns, but a call to fully trust the cross and his love for me. This connects to repentance, how? Well 1. Much of our repentance comes down to idolatry- living for ourselves and things we place above God 2. The cross gives us the freedom and the peace to repent honestly and with full assurance we are still God’s children

Far too often I carry the same attitude of the pharisees that John called brood of vipers, they assumed they were good because they were the children of Abraham. Sometimes I take my identity as a child of God flippantly, banking on it and using it as an excise to not really take repentance seriously. But if John implies and shows that repentance is one that is connected to the kingdom of God and bearing fruit, why are we not doing more of this daily? Just a thought before I get into the meat of my new round of blogging.