So Just Repent

You may ask yourself, “Why is all this happening to me?” It is because of your many sins! That is why you have been stripped and raped by invading armies. [Jeremiah 13.22]

We shouldn't ask, "Why?" unless we are willing to hear the answer!

The problem I see today is that we don't want to hear the answer. 

We want to claim, "Grace, grace!" but refuse to repent of the very sin that Jesus died for.

I challenge Christianity to consider its ways. Go to any Christian bookstore and look for writings by the most popular "Christian" leaders today on the subject of "Why, God?" and you will find two mainstream deceptions: One says that God allows bad things to happen to good people (so just get over it), and the other says bad things are the work of the devil and simply must be rebuked. Neither gives proper discussion of the need to repent.

We think just because maybe we didn't say a bad word, think a bad thought, of do a bad deed that we can declare our innocence in the event of "bad things." How foolish of us! Our first response to every bad thing should be repentance!

Why not just repent?

Why not just try repentance?

Why not make repentance a way of life?

I will tell you why (and it's not because "There is no condemnation..."). It is because we are too proud to repent. It is because we have embraced the number one thing God hates - pride.

Maybe our pride is seated in the doubt that God will respond to our repentance with good. God said He would bless obedience, but do we really believe it?

The need for repentance has not, and is not going away as long as the earth remains. A humble and contrite spirit is all that affects the heart and hand of God. We will never rise to the power of Kingdom life until we acknowledge our fallen state of humanity (our own and our kind).

So just repent.

Father, I want this message so deep in me that I never forget it. I want to live a repentant life - I want to have a humble and contrite spirit.