Vlog # 1 – Repent
If you are here, chances are good you may not really want to be here, not on this page, not at this time.
Sometimes repentance means facing your own monsters (which is sometimes not a pleasant thing). Those monsters (possibly living inside of your personality–mind, heart, memories, soul, spirit, etc.) are doing their best to keep directing you: To do wrong against God, and against your neighbor, but most especially against yourself, or rather against the absolutely pure and holy, clean and beautiful nature that Jesus paid upon the cross for you to have.
The kingdom of God is based on two steps:
- one – repentance
- two – faith.
Those who walk continually, and extensively in these two steps will continue to grow and mature, and become more and more, like the one they are pursuing (like Jesus Himself).
This is what the end fruit of true repentance will eventually look like:
The disciple is not above his master,
Nor the servant above his lord.It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master,
And the servant as his lord.
So what’s the problem?
Those who do not consistently walk in these two steps will likely and predictively be become complacent, disillusioned, lethargic, disrespectful and even dishonoring, to God’s will, and in the way they choose not to keep God’s commands.
If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
How can I know this? The simply comes from personal experience. True repentance is often changing one mindset for another, one behavior for another, one attitude for another, one addiction for another. Without that changing part being active and continually operating in your life, chances are good that the fall impact of biblical repentance may become shallow and possibly nonexistent in the life of an average church goer who is playing the religious game, but not fully committed to doing the will of the father.
So what’s the problem?
John 14:15-17 (KJV) 15 If ye love me, keep my commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
So the proof is in the pudding. If I love God, I will keep his commandments, and that will draw me closer to him. In the process of being drawn closer to him, I will repent regularly of everything that is displeasing to him, just like I should repent of everything displeasing to my wife, if I want to stay in close relationship with her, and she with me.
Although in the case with God, his ways are always just, so every time I repent and change I gain, new insight, new freedom, a higher perspective, and a much stronger and more lasting purpose.
Here’s a question to begin the process of self examination: have you ever committed yourself to doing the perfect, will of God for your life, for one whole day? Week? Month? Year?
Have you ever walked in unbroken, pure, heavenly fellowship with God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and a brother or sister in Christ, laying ahold of the promises of God, for a season, doing the Will of God in Perfect Unison and Harmony in the Spirit of God?
In other words, can you imagine the angels of God looking down on one 24 hour period of your life where you Really exercised your whole faith, applied your whole heart, and engaged your whole mind, and stretched your whole will, and pressed your whole strength into doing the Whole Will of God the Father for that day?
- Did you experience everything in God’s perfect timing?
- Did you experience God’s perfect provision?
- Did you experience God’s perfect protection, maybe even in the midst of trials, tribulations, persecutions, and accusations?
Having to face your own need for repentance is not fun. There is nothing fun or joyful about it. It is ugly, and even disgusting, but also absolutely neccessary work.
True repentance is the
Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. 33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.
Here is what lack of repentance looks like:
How to Preach so No One Repents: