Repent!!! (It is not optional) – Part 3

As I said in parts 1 and 2, while we are required to make the decision to repent, we cannot just wake up on morning and decide in our own power “I am going to repent today”. We are too messed up. Repentance is a gift from God and it is accompanied by the grace of God. Lets look at His grace and this gift as it applies to repentance.

First, Jesus is the door into the Kingdom of God. We enter through Him. Before Jesus lived, died, and rose again, people were dead in their sins and transgressions because there was no alternative to the kingdom of self. There was no other kingdom to turn to. They were stuck. The law just convicted the Jews of Sin and sins. It didn’t offer an alternative. The same is true for unbelievers today.

Second, we cannot earn entrance into the Kingdom. In our own power, we can never be good enough. And how can we enter the Kingdom of God if we are living in the kingdom of self (hence, the need for repentance)? But Jesus paid the price for our entry. When we believe in Jesus, and we do need to confess Him and Lord and Savior (while this confession is necessary, it is not sufficient for salvation), we receive the right and privilege to enter into the Kingdom through the door (Jesus) because of what He did on the cross alone – not because of anything I did or ever could do. Grace !!

Third, as I pointed out above, healing is essential for most of us to be able to turn from the kingdom of self to enter the Kingdom of God. For most of us, without the healing of those deep wounds, frequently coupled with deliverance, we will never be able to relinquish our grip on the kingdom of self. By the grace of God, Jesus heals us when we open our hearts and minds to Him. I cannot heal myself. I cannot bring myself back from that place of spiritual or emotional death. I cannot resurrect myself! I am thinking primarily of emotional and spiritual healing. All the broken people I mentioned above have received significant healing from Jesus. It drives me crazy when I meet pastors who pay lip service to healing; who dismiss healing as a ‘nice to have but not necessary’ part of the Christian life or that it ended with the Apostles. “Why bother with healing, we are all going to die anyway” is the line that misses the point of life in the Kingdom of God and God’s eternal purpose. For most of us, there will never be repentance without this type of healing; healing is essential. And therefore, without healing there will be no salvation.

Fourth, as I said above, repentance is a gift of God. It is pure grace.  “Repentance does not come from within us. It is not a natural trait that lies dormant, just waiting to be aroused and utilized. It is not imparted to us by parents or other relatives. It is not a learned response that we can gain from books or good teachers. It does not rub off on us when we are among repentant people. There is only one source of repentance. It is a gift given by God” (Richard Owen Roberts, ‘Repentance’). There is mystery here. I know in my own life, God drew me into a place where I had to make a choice. Perhaps this is the message of Luke 15 (lost sheep, lost coin, lost son). God searches for the lost (and I was lost). We are so overcome by His love and sacrifice, that when we understand what He has done, we turn to Him. But in the stories in Luke 15 of the lost sheep and lost coin, the lost one is required to repent.

Scripture is clear. We need to choose. When God draws us to Himself, heals us, and demonstrates His love for us by placing the open door of the Kingdom before us, we need to choose to walk though the door. And if we do, we need to be very deliberate about what we are choosing and what we are giving up. We are trading the life of self for the life in the Kingdom of God. We are repenting. As Oswald Chambers says over and over again in ‘My Utmost for His Highest’, we must give up the right to ourselves; we must give up our rights to self to take on the mantle of the adopted son.

Fifth, while it is true that we must choose, we are not alone. Paul clearly tells us this in Philippians 2: 12, 13 “continue to work out your salvation (Kingdom life) with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose” (NIV translation). That same passage in the Amplified Bible captures Paul’s intent this way “work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ). Not in your own strength, for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you (energizing and creating in you the power and desire), both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.” Isn’t that great! By His grace, and because of His great love for us, He helps us with our repentance. We are not alone.

Sixth, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Jesus makes a strong connection not only between repentance and the Kingdom but also between repentance and belief or faith. Really, repentance and belief are two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other and belief cannot really be fully understood apart from repentance. In order to repent, I must believe that Jesus is who He says He is, that He can be my value, acceptance, and connection – all of which I need to live as a child of God – and that His Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, is a present reality that I can enter. In part, this is what faith is all about. It is a gracious gift from God. If I don’t believe these things, there is no alternative to my life in the kingdom of self, no place to turn to, no possibility of repentance.

There can be no true faith without repentance. When we repent, we enter into a personal, deep-spirited, intimate relationship with the King unavailable apart from repentance. We are His. He knows us and we come to know Him. The eyes of our hearts are opened and we are given the confidence that He is trustworthy. Now, and only now, all the intellectual ideas about faith that we had when we lived in the kingdom of self are spiritually understood in our hearts. As Paul says “For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved” (Romans 10: 10). It is in our hearts that we first live in the Kingdom of God. Our confession arises out of this heart change. This is the beginning of true faith. And it is grace.

Seventh, repentance is an attitude, not an action. It is not so much that I am confessing individual sins, which I am doing, but it is more about my attitude toward life. Repentance is not so much about repenting from my sins. Repentance is repenting from who I am. This is the heart of repentance. I am repenting of my whole nature. I am crying out to God for a radical makeover. And while I am the one who needs to ‘repent’, I can not do this in my own power. How can I change my basic nature? Only the Holy Spirit can make this transformation. So, here is the crux of repentance: I have to do it, but I can’t do it. Great! What do I do with this? I asked God. He told me “get over it. These are both true at the same time. You don’t have to understand.”

Repentance is a journey. I suppose it is the journey of sanctification, a journey toward holiness. You repent, enter the Kingdom, and then you repent every day for the rest of your life. I don’t say “I repented”; I say “I am repentant”. If you are like me, some days ‘one step forward, two steps back’ and on good days ‘two steps forward, one step back’. I am constantly battling the enemy who keeps trying to drag or draw me back into the kingdom of self, sometimes with surprising success. Repent, repent, repent, and keep on repenting. We are not alone. We have the Holy Spirit in the Kingdom of God and we have power. Use it. Tell the enemy “leave, your foul spirit”.

Eighth, there is another mystery in repentance. As I turn away from the kingdom of self to the Kingdom of God I receive healing and wholeness, a transformed heart or at least a heart in the process of being transformed. I receive the indwelling Holy Spirit and accompanying power and authority, spiritual gifts, and the abundant life, which is a life of freedom, peace, and joy. I find the true (not false or counterfeit) value, acceptance, and comfort that I need to be fully human. If you asked me to define ‘salvation’ I would say “all of the above”. All of these things are given to me, by God’s grace, when I live or do my best to live, in the Kingdom of God. But ultimately, these are not the reasons I choose the Kingdom. I choose the Kingdom of God because I come to a point in time or a place in my life where I realize how the life I am living grieves God, how it breaks His heart; how my life of Sin is against God’s name, God’s person, and God’s holiness. God’s love draws me, my Sin (and sins) creates in me sorrow, and the life on the other side of the door excites me and gives me hope. And truth to tell, there is fear also of the consequences of being unrepentant. So, I enter. I repent. The mystery in all of this is that while repentance is not about ‘using’ God to get what I want/need, I do benefit. It is about seeking and claiming the abundant life and spiritual gifts that Christ died to give to His children, His beloved. So, it is all about God, but it is also about me and my needs. Both, at the same time.

Friends, there is an urgency to repentance that I touched on at the beginning of this post. It is about salvation. Most of us probably think of salvation as meaning “when I die I will go to heaven and live for eternity with Jesus and my friends and family who went on before”. The Bible tells us that there is truth in this notion, although heaven will not ultimately be in some spiritual place in the sky but here back on a restored earth. But what Jesus also tells us is that this heaven is here, now. It is the Kingdom of Heaven aka the Kingdom of God. This present reality is not here in its fullness. But it is here and it is heaven. Jesus is calling us to decide for and enter heaven now, in this life. Once we are ‘in’ heaven, we will live in it for eternity. It starts now and lasts for eternity.

Now to the urgent part. (What you are about to read is really controversial. I think it is important to say and I think it is backed up by Scripture, although I am not sure I am completely correct. Read what I write in the following paragraphs and ask God for His view on these ideas). Jesus makes it clear (at least it is clear to me) that we are called to enter heaven in this world. That is the reason why He makes such a big deal of repentance. If we do not repent and enter His Kingdom now, in this world, I think He is telling us we will (or could) be out of luck later. Just like the Kingdom, salvation is not a future reality. It is a present reality accessed by repentance. But salvation will not be available at any time in the future. It is available ‘for a limited time only’ as the commercials used to say, and it is totally dependent upon repentance and belief. No repentance and belief (turning from the kingdom of self to enter the Kingdom of God); no salvation.

I think Scripture backs this up, although these are passages you will rarely hear preached. They fly in the face of the comforting notion that if you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior at any time in your life, you are saved. If this acceptance was rooted in true repentance, then yes, you are saved. But if it was not, if you accepted Jesus and then continued to find your ultimate value, acceptance, and comfort in the kingdom of self (secretly saying “I am ok, I am saved. I accepted Jesus when I was 16, or whenever) then you are not yet saved. And I believe most Christians today fall into this category. Maybe I am wrong, but as a population, we Christians are indistinguishable from the world around us. And this should not be the case if we are all saved, living in the Kingdom of God.

So, what are these scary passages? Check out Luke 13: 22-30. Jesus is answering a question about who is going to be saved. “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us’. But He will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ Then you will say. ‘we ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets’. But He will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you came from. Away from me, all you evildoers!”

I believe that Jesus is saying that entering the door is something we choose to do in this life. It is in this life that we ate and drank with Him and heard Him teach in our streets. And it is the door to the Kingdom of God, not the other door, the wide door that leads to the kingdom of self or death (Matthew 7: 13), that we are called to enter in this world. The door to the Kingdom (Matthew 7: 7, 8) will not be open forever. At some point it will be closed. Times up. Who are the people standing outside knocking on the closed door? Those who supposed themselves Christians because they ‘ate and drank with Jesus’ and He was taught in their churches. But Jesus did not know them? Why? My opinion is that they never repented, never chose to live as His subjects in His Kingdom when they had the chance. Up until the very last moment, they chose life in the kingdom of self, and lived as subjects of the other king. They were truly evildoers because it is out of a self-centered heart that evil is released.

When does the door close? Good question. My opinion is that the door closes when we depart this earth. If salvation begins now, and repentance is necessary (along with belief) to be saved, and we don’t repent in this life where heaven is freely offered (well not ‘freely’. It is offered at a ghastly price), what changes when we die?

Matthew 7: 21 – 23 makes the same points. Jesus says “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ (they confessed Jesus as Lord), will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in Heaven”. “But only he who does the will of my Father” to me most plainly means “who does the will of my Father, here, in this life, now”. Jesus goes on to say “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ (again, clearly in this life). Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me you evildoers!”

Who are these people who confessed Jesus as Lord and who prophesied, cast out demons and performed miracles in His name? Clearly people who had some power but who did not belong to Jesus. They supposed they did, after all they had confessed Him as Lord. But He says, “No! I never knew you”. My understanding is that they were men and women who had confessed Jesus as Lord at some point in their lives, but who never repented in this life and continued to live their lives finding their value and acceptance in the kingdom of self. “On that day” means, I believe, the day when they are held accountable for what they did in this life. What percentage of Christians in America are living the same kind of lives? 10%, 30%, 70%? I don’t know, but I suspect it is not an insignificant number. This is why the church in America has so little influence on the culture. We look and act just like them. Because we are not filled with the Kingdom of God, we cannot release the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world. The world does not need another ‘Christian’ living for themselves, telling everyone they should “follow Jesus”.

I close this blog on repentance with a quote from ‘Repentance – The First Word of the Gospel’ by Richard Owen Roberts:

“The biblical teaching on the mandatory nature of repentance may be considered hard by some, but it is the only road that Christ mapped out to eternal glory. Whether you like it or not, repentance is a mandatory part of any hope of eternal life.”

Summary

The first word of the Gospel is repent. Repent is tied to Kingdom and belief. Most fundamentally we don’t repent, we are repentant. To repent means to turn away from finding our value, acceptance, and connection in the kingdom of self (where pride reigns) and finding these things instead in the Kingdom of God. Repentance is a gift from God, but we have to ‘repent’. Repentance is not the same as confessing Jesus as Lord and Savior. If after doing that we do not repent, we are not saved. Repentance and confession are not the same things. I can confess Jesus as Lord, and not repent; I can confess my sins and not repent. For example, I can confess that I lied, but after the confession still be a liar. Repentance is not just about repenting from what I have done; it is repenting from who I am. To truly repent, I need the Holy Spirit. This is why Paul said “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose” (Philippians 2: 12, 13). For the majority of us, true repentance is not possible without emotional and spiritual healing. The church that downplays at least these types of healing is a church where true repentance is not preached and salvation is out of reach for most people.

What are some of the marks of repentance? The top two are humility and the un-offendable heart. In a following post (not yet written) I will discuss more fully the marks of repentance and what the process of repentance might look like.