A Proper View of Repentance In God's Kingdom!

A beautiful message arrives from God to Israel saying: “Take off garment of sorrow and affliction and put on the beauty of the glory from God, put on the robe of righteousness.” Israel had been through a lot. When they felt like they had no breath left, God sent a message promising a return from exile; that Salvation was coming and indeed is at hand. Can you imagine how you would feel during a bad flood like NC just had, you are on top of your roof, someone shouted out loud: a helicopter is coming to rescue you! God’s word comes to us like that. It creates faith and hope within us. In fact, God used this same word to create the Cosmos. There is power in God’s word. Luke’s Gospel also emphasized this idea pointing to Isaiah’s prophecy of the Messiah’s coming; the Savior of the world. Funny enough, the writer used the language of road construction: “Every valley will be filled and mountains made low, crooked paths made straight and rough ways made smooth…” The message begins with John the Baptist who came preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. What? Now Israel’s expectations were raised! They couldn’t wait… They were under Emperor Tiberius who was cruel and a drunk and they were so wishing for the old days of King David and Solomon. But here is a problem: The way they imagined this rescue was different. It turns out, the Messiah’s weapon was God’s word (The Messiah was God's word), his was a message of repentance, a new landscape for your soul, a new pathway and a new heart. The Gospel’s message is lifegiving to all whose lives are committed to Jesus Christ. We all respond differently to challenges of life here on earth: For e.g. We admire the Saints becauase they looked at life with God’s eyes and lived victoriously despite the challenges. God did not remove their challenges and obstacles, God changed their hearts. That's why John the Baptist wanted to open our eyes to the message of repentance, so that it can be rooted deeply in our hearts and cause us to turn to inward change. This situation creates two groups of people: (1) Those who received the Gospel and live by it and everything they do is informed by the words of the Gospel. (2) The other category of people is those who remain unrepentant/unresponsive to the Gospel. When the Gospel demands from them something like: "deal graciously with the faults of others, forgive them please" they respond negatively saying that they can't really forgive. John the Baptist had hoped that we would all realize we are on top of our roofs desperate for a divine rescue, and that every day whatever is our issues/challenges, would be seen through the framework of the eyes of the Gospel. If not, then we settle with the world’s idea of playing ball with the concept of “THIS IS HOW THINGS WORK IN THE WORLD”. “THIS IS HOW THINGS WORK IN THE WORLD” is the idea that people don’t ever change. We fall into this defeatist thinking that people will always be people; they will always seek short cuts in life, they will want to work less and expect high reward; they would want to bribe/deceive to get what they want. But deep down we all know it’s wrong, yet the world has sanitized these ideas clean enough for some of us to think: Well since none will be harmed, I guess it’s okay! No of course it’s not okay. John the Baptist wouldn’t entertain any of that nonsense! He challenged a world of sin into submission through repentance. There resides our great reason this Advent season, to prepare the way of the Lord into our homes and into our hearts: Let our true Christmas decorations, be to captivate all our thought patterns, bringing them under the leadership of Christ; leveling everything in our soul and removing all obstructions that stand in the way of Christ and His grace. A true partnership with God! (My Christmas decorations are not up yet!) The trouble with us is that often we are unaware of our need for God’s rescue, yet our situation is so bad just like being stuck on the roof of a house, pleading: “Please God, save me!”. The truth is that we are more likely to choose our own way, forsaking the way of the Gospel, turning to playing ball with THIS IS HOW THINGS WORK. Face it! We need God in our lives. “He has come to his people to set them free! To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Allow God to work through you, to challenge you and to build you up into a peaceful oasis. A new way of life is awaiting! Trust in Jesus Christ the Son of God! Amen.

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