Tag: repentance

2 Kings 22:11-20

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment


             It is hard to fathom that things had spiritually degenerated so much in the kingdom of Judah that the Book of Law, God’s Word to Israel, was completely lost.  The Law was tucked so far back in the temple, and had gathered so much dust, that everyone simply forgot it existed.  Yet, maybe we in the Western world can relate to this more than we think.  When a plethora of Bibles and translations exist, yet they gather dust on the shelf and we have not cracked it open since….?
             We are approaching the end of the Christian Year which always culminates in Christ the King Sunday.  As we journey with Jesus and ascend his holy hill, we anticipate corporately acknowledging Christ’s lordship.  The best and most biblical way to do so is through penitent humility.  King Josiah’s officials had found the Book of the Law and brought it to him.  After they read the words, the king became completely undone with humble repentance.  He realized that the life of the nation had not revolved around the majesty and kingship of God, and it cut him to the core of his being.  
             The first and most appropriate response to the realization of God’s sovereignty and Christ’s lordship is humility.  Without it there is no going forward; there is only the ghastly state of remaining stuck in one place with ancient dust accumulating on our static hearts.  But with humility there is repentance; and with repentance there opens up the grand vistas of hope, new life, and fresh beginnings.
             Try something quite different from your regular experience today.  Put on some old clothes and read carefully the words of Scripture.  Take the time to acknowledge some sin of omission in your life.  Then, tear your clothes; yes, rip your shirt.  Allow yourself to feel, like Josiah, the realization of missing the mark.  But do not remain in this condition.  Drink in the grace of God in Christ and receive the forgiveness that is yours through Jesus.  The trajectory of our Christian lives will be determined by the depth of humility we experience, and filling the hole with mercy.
             Awesome God, although I might not always perceive your majesty and sovereignty, you stand above all creation as the Lord whom I am to submit to in all things.  I come to you in great humility of heart and vow to obey everything I read in your Holy Word through Jesus Christ, my King.  Amen.

Repentance as Worship

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Repentance is one of those big biblical words sometimes lost in the worship of God.  Yet, without repentance we would not be Christians and we would not be able to live fruitful lives following Jesus.  To repent of something simply means to change our minds and stop doing one thing, and start doing another.  In Holy Scripture, repentance means to stop sinning and start worshiping God.  Since true worship is a conversation with God in which we hear his revelation to us and we respond to him, repentance is a vital part of the Christian worship experience.  The nitty-gritty of repentance is to change our minds about trusting in things and people other than God, and start placing our complete faith in Christ alone.  The prophet Isaiah saw a vision of God in the temple, a self-revealing of the One true God that caused him to be completely unraveled with repentance (Isaiah 6:1-7).
 
Isaiah was reduced to nothing after seeing a vision of a holy God.  Humans cannot see God in his glory without seeing their sinful selves.  Isaiah’s response to God was not praise, but confession.  Show me a proud, self-centered, and arrogant person and I will show you a person who has not seen God (and will not see God unless recognition of personal sin is realized).
 
            Isaiah could not cleanse himself from his sin; he needed God to purge and purify him from his uncleanness.  In the same way, we need God to cleanse us.  The New Testament says that “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin… If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:7, 9).
 
            In the Bible, when people saw God they were completely undone and saw their own sin and depravity for what it is.  When the Apostle Peter saw the Lord Jesus in his immensity and power through a miraculous catch of fish “he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man’” (Luke 5:8).  When the Apostle John had a vision of Jesus Christ in all his glory, and heard his voice, he fell at the Lord’s feet as though dead (Revelation 1:12-17).  When the prophet Ezekiel had a vision of God and saw the appearance of God’s glory, he fell facedown (Ezekiel 1:25-28).  Even Daniel, perhaps the most righteous prophet of all time, saw a vision of God in all his glory and fell prostrate with his face to the ground, totally overwhelmed with God’s holiness and human sinfulness (Daniel 8:15-18).
 
            There is so much sinfulness in the world and so much indifference in Christ’s Church today because people are not seeing God in his glory and his holiness.  If they did, they would be completely beside themselves and see sin’s foulness and degradation and repent from all the ways in which they have been apathetic and complacent in living their lives.  The world and the church need a fresh view of a holy God that only comes from meeting with God.
 
            We need to put ourselves in a position to see and hear God so that we can turn from all the obstacles that prevents us from experiencing Father, Son, and Spirit.  What hinders us from seeing God’s glory and hearing God’s voice is legion:  inattention to God’s Word and God’s creation that would cause a mindfulness to the Holy Spirit; intense, constant, and prolonged preoccupations and daydreams that prevents availability to the words and ways of Jesus; lack of sleep and good health habits that dulls the spiritual senses and prevents awareness of God; lack of spiritual practices and disciplines that would put us in a position to experience a vision of God.
 
            To put it bluntly:  we must repent of all the ways we do not pay attention to God.  God is calling but we do not hear him.  God is revealing himself but we do not see him. 
 
Ø  What, then, are we doing in our personal lives to put ourselves in a position to see and hear God?
Ø  In what ways are we corporately fostering a sense of the holy God? 
Ø  How does repentance fit into to our personal and corporate worship? 
Ø  Have we identified the things that grieve the heart of God so that we can repent of those things? 
Ø  What one action step will you take in response to this blog post?
 

 

            We serve a blessed holy triune God of Father, Son, and Spirit.  God has gone far out of his way to reach us so that we can participate in the dance of the Trinity.  May we all see a vision of God is his glory this Sunday and allow that scene to slay us so that we will have renewed fellowship with God in Christ through the power of the Spirit.  Amen.

John 12:36-43

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
             The season of Lent is a time of preparation for Easter, and of repentance from sin.  It is a time to consider our ways and the state of our hearts and find that only the grace of God in Christ can heal all wounds.  Today’s Gospel lesson gives perhaps the most succinct and convicting statement about the dark places of our lives.  Many of the religious authorities actually believed in Jesus, but they did not speak of it because they were afraid of being put out of the synagogue by the Pharisees.  “For they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.”
             The word “glory” has its roots in the Old Testament, and has the meaning of being weighty or heavy.  In other words, we might picture God descending to earth among humankind in all his weightiness.  If we were back in the ‘70s we could say, “heavy, man, heavy!”  Glory is really a reference to God’s presence among us.  So, if we plug this thought into the religious authorities, we see that they preferred the presence and accolades of their peers to God.
             It is easy to be hard on the religious rulers in the New Testament, but this is Lent, and, so, we must shine the light of Scripture upon ourselves.  Perhaps the burning question for all believers at this time of year is:  Do I seek the presence of God more than the presence of anything or anyone else?  
             In my church the first few rows on Sunday morning are always empty.  It bugs me.  I don’t like it.  There are times when I am more concerned about the presence of people than the presence of God in a worship service.  Maybe you live in fear at work and are more concerned about the presence of people around you than the presence of God, so you keep quiet about your beliefs.
             Lent is not just about identifying sin; it is about receiving grace.  So, let us find that the cleansing work of the Spirit through the work of Jesus is active through our confession of sin.  And let us pursue the glory of God in all we do and say as grace permeates deep in our souls.
             Glorious God, your presence is awesome and appreciated.  Fill me so with your presence that your glory comes shining out of me in all I do and say, through Jesus Christ my Savior, and Lord.  Amen.

False Guilt versus Godly Sorrow

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
            In many ways pastors and church leaders are in the guilt business.  No, I am not talking about ministerial dopes using guilt as a tool to get congregants to serve in the church’s programs.  Instead, I mean that preachers, teachers, and leaders traffic in dealing with people who either feel a false sense of shame, or have godly sorrow.  Knowing the difference between the two is critical to having a church ministry that is truly helping people and is life-giving, or a ministry that just gins-up worldly sorrow and produces spiritual death (2 Corinthians 7:10).
 
            Because we live in a fallen world everyone exhibits tendencies toward false guilt at times in their lives.  We can all identify with these dynamics of worldly sorrow that leads to nowhere:  taking responsibility for others; being so concerned for helping others that there is a failure to take care of oneself; self-hatred; martyr syndrome; hopelessness and a victim mentality; over-emphasizing what you have done wrong.  In other words, there is plenty of true guilt to have in this life without scrambling to create the kind of guilt and sorrow that God himself does not level on us.  Heaping unnecessary guilt on ourselves or others is just plain egregious and goes against Christ’s gospel of grace.
 
            But that does not mean we should never feel guilty; it is just that we need to experience the right kind of guilt.  There are plenty of lists in the New Testament about what sinful behavior and speech really is, and we ought to stick with those things rather than add our separate list of the terrible ten or nasty nine which do not appear in Scripture.  For example, Paul said to the Galatian church that the acts of the sinful nature are obvious:  sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and the like (Galatians 5:19-21).  Let’s be struck to the heart about gossiping about another person, slandering a fellow brother or sister in Christ, or viewing pornography rather than worrying about why someone failed to say “hi” to me in the hallway.
 
            Before mentioning Paul’s description of what godly sorrow is really like, let’s acknowledge that there are people who avoid true guilt at all costs.  When confronted with the truth, an avoider of godly sorrow will be characterized by one or more of the following:  defensiveness; rationalizing the behavior or speech; making excuses; blaming others; feeling threatened and switching the focus on the other.  In short, worldly sorrow does not take responsibility but sticks with the delusion that they caught a bad break or that others pushed them to it.  The avoider of responsibility may go on and on about how unfair life has been to them or even shed tears in order to receive empathy when they really have no intention of changing.  When a person gives you a blank affect when telling you what they have done wrong and exhibits no indication of wanting to face the consequences of their actions, beware!  They want you to agree with them.
 
            According to the Apostle Paul, godly sorrow produces several things (2 Corinthians 7:11).  It creates earnestness to hear the truth about how your actions wounded another with a sincerity to listen and care for those you have hurt.  True guilt is an eagerness to make amends and understands the person(s) they hurt need time to forgive.  Godly sorrow brings indignation – a real sense of understanding how bad the actions or words were that wounded another.  Godly sorrow is alarmed at the reality that you have and still could easily harden your heart and continue to abuse another.  Godly sorrow knows how easy it is to fall back into destructive patterns that damage others, and invites accountability and help.  Godly sorrow has a longing to restore broken relationships and desires proper boundaries so as to not hurt the other again.  Godly sorrow has a deep concern for anyone touched by the abuse.  In short, godly sorrow is the willingness to face any and all consequences that helps others feel safe.
 
            We all need to begin identifying and dealing with our own destructive patterns.  We must actively listen by welcoming confrontation and input from others; taking responsibility to remember what others tell us; telling others the truth about how we use them to help enable us in our sinful patterns; stopping the belief that hiding truth protects others; telling yourself the truth; and, being honest about your feelings even if they expose that you are in a terrible place.
 
            Every one of us has had both false guilt and avoided true guilt.  We will tend, however, to be dominant with one or the other.  It is essential to determine which we tend toward.  Most people who heap false guilt upon themselves constantly want to blame themselves.  Most avoiders of true guilt want to see themselves as struggling with false guilt.  This really cannot be done alone because, the Scripture tells us, the heart is deceitful.  This is why belonging to a church family and getting involved in the church’s ministries is essential for us – because we need one another in order to become the people God wants us to be.  And church leaders must have a solid sense of when they are talking with people who exhibit signs of genuine repentance and when they are trying to be manipulated into feeling empathy for an abuser.
 

 

            By God’s grace the church of Jesus Christ will grow together into maturity as we commit ourselves to helping one another face the truth and consequences about ourselves.  Even so, come Lord Jesus.