Many times we are bombarded with living up to a perfect standard in Christ because we are called to be like Him. Sometimes even the word repentance can be scary because even though it means to change your mind some people have made you think that you can lose the hedge of protection or the covering for sin or even that you might lose your salvation if you sin. But the purpose of repentance is not to make you afraid and terrified of God so much that you cannot rest or trust in Him because you think or going to end up in a dark place or that He is going take you and tear you to shreds unless you repent. God is a loving God and He wants you to turn your sin into singing.
If you are addicted to alcohol then He wants you to recover and be of support to people struggling with the same issue. If you are anxious and worried and afraid He wants you turn around and comfort people who are also anxious, worried, and afraid because He knows that we have nothing to fear because He is always by our side. Whatever your sin may be, great or small, He has already accounted for it in His provision. It is part of His accounting system. Like in accounting you measure the ledger by the money going out and the money coming in, He knows that His blood is on the other side of the scale of Justice to account for the sin that we have made, and for that we can rejoice. We can also rejoice in knowing that as it says in Psalm 121 He is our Protector. There is nothing that can change Him from who He is and it is no matter what you do it can’t change who He is. He is our Redeemer as well as our Protector and His will is always for own best interest. Of course there are things that we probably shouldn’t be doing because they are harmful to ourselves and others, but we don’t have to live with guilt and anxiety because of these things. It is by His grace and His perfect measure of peace and mercy that all things work together to His divine plan and that His mercy is forever as it says in Psalm 136 – His steadfast love endures forever –
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
4 to him who alone does great wonders,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
5 to him who by understanding made the heavens,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
6 to him who spread out the earth above the waters,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
7 to him who made the great lights,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
8 the sun to rule over the day,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
9 the moon and stars to rule over the night,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
10 to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
11 and brought Israel out from among them,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
12 with a strong hand and an outstretched arm,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
13 to him who divided the Red Sea in two,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
14 and made Israel pass through the midst of it,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
15 but overthrew[a] Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
16 to him who led his people through the wilderness,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
17 to him who struck down great kings,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
18 and killed mighty kings,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
19 Sihon, king of the Amorites,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
20 and Og, king of Bashan,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
21 and gave their land as a heritage,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
22 a heritage to Israel his servant,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
23 It is he who remembered us in our low estate,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
24 and rescued us from our foes,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
25 he who gives food to all flesh,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
26 Give thanks to the God of heaven,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
In this passage it means that His steadfast love and His mercy are the same thing. His all encompassing everlasting promising love of His will be with us always no matter what we do.
The question is once you realize that He is your Redeemer or Protector or Healer or Provider and some circumstance comes to challenge that will you still believe that is who He is? It is that in which He is testing you on. He is not testing you on if you are not perfect or if you lie sometimes or get angry sometimes or want to scream at the telemarketers or do things that just don’t seem like what you are supposed to be doing, will you still trust that He is your Redeemer and that He will always be your Redeemer. The problem is that in most of these Attributes of God we don’t seem to have a problem with Him, but we often have a problem with Him being a Judge, but He judges even on the basis of the balance of what is right and wrong knowing that we have a Mighty Counselor or Advocate in Jesus Christ and that His blood washes us away from sin.
I think most of the Church has gotten off track on repentance, which is best defined as a transition from being what was once a caterpillar going into the cocoon and turning into a butterfly. Some of us are still in the cocoon wondering when we are going to get out, but God knows when we are ready, but we must never lose our faith in the cocoon which is giving us wings so that we can fly high and soar. Sometimes we are dismayed by all the things around us and all the challenges around us that we begin to question who Jesus is and how much He actually loves us and is Jealous for us and wants us to “change our minds about Him” – we must remember that He is Jealous.
Revelation 2 says –
2 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.
2 “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’
In this context the word repent means to change your mind about Christ, which is the real essence of the verse because if you look at it – they hated the deeds of the evildoers so they were not doing evil, but they had turned their minds against Christ and did not have the love that once had. I am guessing this was because of offense, strife, and bitterness which had gotten into their hearts. They became hard hearted toward Christ and had to turn to Him.
Revelation 2:12-17 says
To the Church in Pergamum
12 “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: ‘The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword.
13 “‘I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did notdeny my faith[b] even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. 14 But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching ofBalaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. 15 So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16 Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. 17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’
I am not going into all the verses in Revelation to define the Word repent, in all these cases, but in this context it seems that Jesus is grieved by the eating of food sacrificed to idols and of fornication, and there is a deep history behind these verses that goes in with the iniquity and injustice done by these verses.
Even though we have the Blood of Jesus as our standard and measuring device by which to measure all things as they pertain to Christ, and in regard to sin, we must not let us let anyone take away from the fact that Jesus is Judge and Redeemer at the same time. He judges injustice, but He redeems at the same time. It is part of His divine nature to make the vessel in whichever way He created, and He prefers to use cracked pots instead of self-righteous perfect vessels. He knows that through our weaknesses and failures and sins and iniquities that there is a prize of an upward calling, a glorious manifestation of us seated with Christ in heavenly places, but if we are so bogged down and beating ourselves up for our sins or not being able to clearly identify with Him in all His attributes. We are called to be Christ-like, but can we really be 100% Christlike – He is our Redeemer, can we be a redeemer as well, I think not! There is only one Redeemer and that’s Him, and there’s only One Judge and that’s Him, and in Him everything is made Righteous so to even attain such a glorious calling seems to be an unattainable aspiration. So what do we do? We accept that we in ourselves are imperfect and that we must stop trying to work in our selves to earn a place in God’s respect, and just accept that we are lost and helpless and we need a Savior, and that the very sin that we commit is going to turn into beauty for someone else.
I have done things before I was Christian which I regret dearly, and I now can thank God that He has changed me, but I still am a work in progress and sure there are things I don’t understand right now like Bible Prophecy, but that doesn’t change the fact that God is who He says He is. Sometimes as I read on one blogpost, we read the Bible and think it is about us, but it is not – it is all about Him, and everything in the world is about Him, and it is His story, so we should rejoice in that fact. We don’t see Him as Healer because we haven’t identified with Him as that – that takes a personal revelation from Him, that comes from Him.
13 When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”
14 So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. 19 And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed[d] in heaven.”
This rock – means firmness and strength of a man’s soul –
Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for petra (Strong’s 4073)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2012. 2 May 2012. < http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
Strongs=G4073&t=KJV >
Jesus changed Simon’s name to mean firmness and strength and do you know why? He would have to have this identity because Jesus knew that Peter would deny Him three times, and He knew that while he professed in his own strength to have enough courage and steadiness not to deny Christ, He in the end would be turned away from Christ. So in this revelation of Christ as the Son of the living God, His identity is revealed to Peter. So has the identity of Christ as your Redeemer been revealed to you? Has the identity of Christ as your Savior been revealed to you? Only the Father will be able to reveal this to you. But if you seek it out in His Word, it can clearly be seen. So what attribute of God has been revealed to you and do you still hold on to that promise? Will you when you sin instead of mourning and grieving over your sin, will you make it an opportunity to sing?
Yes God is Holy, but to call ourselves unholy will grieve the Holy Spirit and wreck havoc to us because it is by faith that we are made holy, we are to call things that are not as though they are and in this we can find perfect peace. But until we come complete revelation of Him as our Redeemer we will be wrestling with our sins, guilt, shame, fear, and pain, until we realize that Jesus has came and done it once and for all!!!
singingsinglev4 