Repentance: It's Not All that Bad

Repentance is not an emotion.  It is not feeling sorry for your sins.  It is deciding that you have been wrong in supposing you could manage your own life and be you own god; it is deciding that you were wrong in thinking that you had, or could get, the strength, education, and training to make it on your own; it is deciding that you have been told a pack of lies about yourself, your neighbors, and your world.   And it is deciding that God is Jesus Christ is telling you the truth.  Repentance is a realization that what God wants from you and what you want from God are not going to be achieved by doing the same old things, thinking the same old thoughts.  Repentance is a decision to follow Jesus Christ and become his pilgrim in the path of peace.  (Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p.30)

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.  (Matthew 13:44)

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What if repentance didn't make you feel bad?  What if the emotional marks of repentance was love, joy, and peace?  When I think about it, I find that repentance usually ends up in relief and joy.  I can finally let go of something that I thought I needed because I find there is something else so much better and greater.

No, what makes me miserable is my resistance to repentance.  Approaching the corner I mean to turn, I find myself full of fear, worry, and even anger.  Part of me doesn't want to repent.  That's the part of me that causes all the pain.  Repentance is the relief, the sunrise.

So Jesus also explains some of the top "dreads" that keep me from repenting in another parable.

Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path.  The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.  But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.  The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.  But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.  (Matthew 13:18-23)

Ignorance is the first.  What I don't know can hurt me.  Persecution is another problem.  Other people's resistance can become my resistance through fear.  Worry and greed can eventually outgrow even the best of news.

Repentance asks, seeks, and knocks.  Repentance must come from certainty and fearlessness.  Repentance must weed out worries and all sorts of lust and greed to last.  Such repentance doesn't yield a mere 10% in a year, but 30,000% to 100,000%.

Is Jesus exaggerating?  Is he just advertising the kingdom with the current marketing techniques?  The message is clear.  The influence and work of God in my life is more valuable than anything else.  It is worth giving it all away.  Repentance may seem foolish to those who cannot see the hidden treasure, but it makes perfect sense to the one who has found the treasure.

Lord, you are my treasure and my triumph.  Save me from all that would take me from you.  Let my decision be wise, fearless, and lasting.  Amen.

The Reality of the Cross

 May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14)

 The high point in human history - the cross! . . .  The single greatest force in human life [is] the cross.  And believing that totally flips everything upside down.  (Dallas Willard, Jesus and Culture, Divine Conspiracy talks)

The cross is not primarily a show of how bad people are, but how badly people need God.  Without God our efforts at good are always interrupted by necessity.  Peter felt it was necessary to deny Jesus even though he swore he would go to death with him.  Pilate felt it was necessary to turn Jesus over even though he could find no charges against him.  The Sanhedrin turned Jesus over to the Romans because it was necessary for one man to die rather than a nation.

The reality of the cross is that as a human being, when I try to do good on my own, I will inevitably find it necessary to overturn or betray that good for the sake of something "necessary."  The cross outlines the hope of all people.  When my life is turned over to God, the "necessities" become the very things I have to put to death.  Instead of crucifying what it good, true, and beautiful for the sake of these necessary desires and fears, I have to crucify these desires and fears.

"The wages of sin is death," says Paul.  Living apart from God, away from his grace, and on my own only results in a continuing death.  All that is good will be crucified because it threatens the "Almighty 'I will'".  This form of self-will must die if I am to live.

The high point of the cross is that it really changed everything.  The greatest discovery of humanity was made on the cross by the one who showed us everything a person should be, Jesus.  The cross is mine to boast in because it shatters all the lies that I am fed daily about this world and myself.  The cold, hard reality of the cross crowns the life Jesus lived in this world with the power to be humble, the joy to go through suffering, and the life to conquer death.  These are not mere ideas, but realities found in relationship with God.

The world is crucified to me through the cross.  All the glamour, the display of wealth and power, the fear and dread, the seemingly unending supply of pleasure and distraction turns out to be a lie.  The world is a worn-out shirt, ready to be retired.  The world is a defeated enemy, ready to be destroyed.  The world is uninteresting and bland, ready to be replaced and renewed.  The cross tears the mask off of the world of humanity working apart from God and for its own desires and shows it to be futile and empty, like a dying criminal on a tree.

I am crucified to the world through the cross.  I become an exile in this world rather than a resident.  I find myself "on the outside" in many situations.  Jesus said that the world will hate those who follow him as it hated him.  The systems and institutions set up without God or against him have no place for me.  Occasionally I am attacked or rejected, but mostly where I follow Jesus I am just ignored.

Lord, let the cross define my reality and my hope.  Let me be like Paul who boasts only in the cross of Christ.  Amen.