Repentance
Something inside us longs for a new beginning, getting beyond
that chronic struggle. We look down the road and hope that just around
the corner things will change.
We hope the same old cycle will shift.
Perhaps our circumstances or efforts will eventually bring us
into a new life, a new world, joy.
The child looks forward to summer vacation.
The young person can’t wait to graduate.
The investor waits for the return on their investment.
You put in those last few years of retirement looking forward to
freedom. We wade through
the swamp we slosh through the difficult, waiting for that turning
point. Sometimes we drift
into the place where we can’t imagine life being any different, where
the road runs straight off the horizon with no deviation, straight as a
lemming off a cliff. We’re
trapped, imprisoned by regrettable choices.
Bitterness and cynicism take their toll, shutting off any life
remaining. Our
sophisticated sense of reality smothers hope, trading it for pride.
We have a desire to start afresh built into us.
We anticipate. And
as the saying goes, anticipation is often greater than realization.
But, in the case of repentance it’s not true.
Repentance is the door to fulfillment, a turning point where
everything changes, the ultimate threshold.
A threshold that isn’t easy to cross because of our old hostility
toward God. But none the less
it’s the stumbling upon a great treasure, the dawning of a new life.
And he’s at work every day engineering circumstances, encouraging
us to repent. Once we cross
that threshold he begins the process of making us like himself, the very
thing that will fulfill us.
But it can’t happen until we repent.
Repentance is becoming
right with God, the place we turn around and begin a life of change.
Though God is using everything at his disposal to lead us there,
it’s still a rare thing.
Jesus said only a few find it.
Those few aren’t the educated few, or the popular few but those
who are willing to run cross-grain to their pride and instinct to
connect with him. That’s
what makes it rare. Some
people are just too busy running in circles to take the time.
Others can’t muster the honesty to confront themselves.
But most people simply refuse to submit under any circumstances.
Rare? That’s why God
gave us the freedom to choose, because there’s no meaning in a
relationship when people are forced into it. We understand.
Like him, we don’t want friends who are simply using us.
We don’t want people to hang around us because they think they
have to, we want people to love us by their own choice.
Finding people like that is
rare.
Repentance can also be confused with other phenomenon.
Take for instance those who recite a formula and consider that
repentance, say a few magic words and we’re in.
I hope you can see that’s not repentance.
Beyond that, there are many people who feel content thinking they
are on good relations with God because they concede he exists.
They neither love him nor interact with him.
But they know he’s out there somewhere and therefore hope he’ll
deal nicely with them because they verify his existence.
That’s an unfortunate point of view.
In James 2:19 we find the statement,
“You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe
that and shudder.” The
Devil and his host, who are hostile toward God, know without a doubt
that he exists. They know
what he’s like and what he wants because they’ve experienced him before
time began and walked away.
They have no interest in him and understand the consequences of their
choice, so they shudder.
Conceding his existence is obviously not repentance.
Yet, this isn’t the only mistaken point of view.
There are a number of other things that are confused with being
right with God, subtle things. So, it might be helpful to look at those
things that are not repentance.
Repentance is not what’s called
fox-hole Christianity.
In fact fox-hole Christianity isn’t Christianity at all.
Consider the person who stumbles into a major crisis. They tend
to instinctually drop all pretense of their political and rational
belief and cry out to God.
You might say, I’d never to that.
Well, you probably haven’t been that scared yet.
This knee-jerk response seems to be built into us.
In the American culture we don’t run into this all that often
because our affluence tends to mask the pain.
But life still presses people to the edge and sometimes you find
yourself in a foxhole.
The interesting thing is that God responds to those who cry out
for help. In fact the
Scriptures tell us that he’s responsive to even the ungrateful and
wicked. They call out and
he responds. Amazing.
His motivation is clear.
He says that he is kind in the hope that it will lead them to
repentance. That’s from his
side. From their side it’s
possible to have the mistaken idea that if he’s helping them it’s
because they’re good people and on the right track.
He wouldn’t help someone that was hurting him, would he?
If they’re not careful they
could easily fall into the habit of exploiting him, asking for his help
as they accomplish their personal goals.
Then they talk about how they have this arrangement with the man
upstairs. This arrangement
is a very personal thing, something they don’t want others to critique.
They ask for help and he helps.
Though this is profound it shouldn’t be confused with repentance.
His hope is that over time, they would progress from their
exploitation and see that he’s more than capable to be in charge of
everything in their lives.
Another phenomenon that is confused with repentance is what we
might call an educated
investigation.
Consider our friend that has called out to God in a crisis. They
know that God responded, it’s no mystery, no coincidence.
So they figure that they might examine him a little more closely.
God draws people into this curiosity to engage them.
Eventually the Scriptures come into play.
They open it up and read, suddenly the Spirit of God begins to
open them up and something happens inside.
It says that the Scriptures are alive, piercing deep within our
souls. That’s what it means when
the Holy Spirit takes the Scriptures and turns a light on.
It’s a profound experience. Your
life is laid bare, as if someone who knows everything about you puts it
all out on the table for you to see.
What started out as an examination of God becomes an examination
of you. And unexpectedly
you learn something of him.
This encounter has a dizzying effect.
You work your way from story to story asking him to speak.
You’re convinced of his presence as he brings an understanding of
life. You see it, you
understand it, you experience it. This
penetrating experience can make a person feel they are intimately
involved with God because of the unusual interaction that’s been going
on. It is intimate, but
it’s not repentance.
Another step in this progression can also be confused with
repentance. Let’s call it
experimental faith.
Continuing with our friend who did some investigating about
God, their curiosity has compiled some information about him. They find
that God is calling them into some challenging things.
God is asking them to trust him.
Our friend writhes a bit, knowing that God is asking to run
cross-grain to their instinct and habit.
They feel the resistance of the old hostility in them.
Perhaps, they’re being asked to trust him in something economic
or relational, at work or at home.
In any case it’s something new and difficult.
God asks them to try him out, experiment.
In the end, let’s say our friend
does.
At this point God designs a circumstance where they can practice.
They recognize it a few days later, and marvel at the experience.
Gingerly they do their best as the situation presents itself,
trusting and doing what he asked fairly well. They experience something
unusual inside, getting a glimpse of Life.
A life that is possible outside the daily grind.
They not only looked through a
window, but opened it and took a breath of fresh air, they could taste
it. This sort of
experimentation can go on for years, decades in fact.
It cultivates and nurtures trust.
But this still isn’t repentance.
It's
an easy thing in the local church to confuse repentance with
other phenomenon. We
don’t rationally sit down and say that God helped us in a crisis and
suppose that this interaction was repentance.
I don’t think we go to the extreme, saying that repentance is
the same thing as being pierced by the teaching of his Spirit.
Nor, do I think we deliberately confuse ourselves by saying that
we have experimented and found God to be trustworthy, equating
that with repentance. But
too often, what does happen is that we are so immersed in the
unimportant that we settle into a contentment of pleasant interaction with him.
It’s not rational, it’s simply instinctual.
We have this feeling that since he’s been so gently involved with
us, we must be eternally connected.
Well, he does love you a great deal.
But only at the place of repentance are we adopted into his
family. Think of it this
way: There’s a big
difference between taking in kids who need your help and love, compared
to your biologic children.
The relationship is drastically amped-up.
All the love we experience from him, before repentance, is very
moving. But that simply
speaks to the profound effect awaiting us beyond the threshold.
Then, what is repentance?
Well, it’s abandonment to him.
This abandonment is far reaching.
It’s where we turn around from a whole way of thinking, a whole
way of life. You can’t do
that cold-turkey. You must
experience him in such a way that prepares you for this decision.
At repentance we decide not to trust our perspective or
experience anymore. We
decide to shift away from our long-held goals and dreams.
We no longer hold ourselves credible or trustworthy.
We now run everything through his counsel and critique on a
ruthless search, ferreting out all attempts to deceive ourselves.
We no longer exploit him for the carrying out of our agenda, but
give ourselves fully to his.
It’s the place we relinquish, as the old saying goes, our right
to ourselves. This is not
for the timid.
The first time this happens for the disciple, it happens
deliberately. We might call
it repentance with a capital ‘R’. It
doesn’t happen as a child and it doesn’t happen without you knowing it.
If it happens, you’ll remember when you did it because every
fiber resisted it. Our old
nature wants to fog the issue, distracting back to the unimportant.
But, once done, our lives become a progression of little ‘r’
repentance where we say no to
our old nature and yes to
him, it’s called obedience.
Or another way to put it, we make a conceptual decision to abandon
ourselves and follow that up with specific instances of obedience day
after day.
Repentance does mean to ‘turn around’.
That’s the technical term.
Unusual as it may seem, we can be religiously involved with him
without turning around. We
can be amiable toward him.
We can even be in the ministry, in leadership and do dramatic things in
his service. We can go to
exotic places and deal with profound metaphysical phenomenon and still
not have come to repentance.
We can even point people to him, all without turning around
ourselves. Repentance
is something to be clear and careful about, because your eternity
depends on it. Something in
you will resist it, even to death. But
there’s a longing in us to turn the corner and find a new beginning.
Repentance is the ultimate of new beginnings, a rare treasure
indeed.