What Do You Mean "Repent?"

December 12, 2016

What Do You Mean "Repent?"

This messenger was John the Baptist. He was in the wilderness and preached that people should be baptized to show that they had repented of their sins and turned to God to be forgiven.

Mark 1:4

Before I retired, every few years during Lent I would preach a series on the Seven Deadly Sins. Those sermons ended with an invitation to own the presence of pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth in our lives and to repent thereof.  My impression today is there is scant mention of repentance in many churches.

When was the last time you repented of your sins? Perhaps this little exercise can help us recapture the power in John’s call to repentance and turning to God.

Look back on some significant event if your life. Take the time to truly examine the event until the distant memory becomes vivid and fresh to you. Keep reconsidering this event until you discover in your remembering more evidence of the hand of God there than you first saw. Can you see more signs of the grace of God than you ever knew were there before? Do these fresh encounters with God’s presence call for more gratitude to God than you have yet expressed?

If this little exercise helps you find in yourself a will to live a different, more faithful and obedient tomorrow because of what you have discerned, you have repented. If you want to go a little deeper in this spiritual formation exercise, take some time to understand what was present in your life that prevented you from a closer appreciation of God’s presence at the time of your significant event. Often we miss an awareness of God because of the presence of pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth in our lives.

Just saying.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.