“Our
Lord and Master Jesus Christ said ‘Repent’, He willed that the entire life of a
believer to be one of repentance.”
If we follow this train of
thought, not only is repentance an important part of the life of a Christian
but it is a work that is ongoing. A consistent progression of turning away from
sin and turning towards the likeness of Christ is the call of every
single Christian. We don’t just repent
once, we don’t arrive one day (before glorification in heaven) able to rightly
say, there’s nothing that I need to
repent from today. On
the contrary, it’s
a daily call that we receive from the Word of God. Take a look at Romans chapter six. I’m going to just highlight a few verses for
the sake of time but I encourage you to read the whole chapter,
from beginning to end.
Romans
6:4, 12-14
“We
were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as
Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk
in newness of life...Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make
you obey its passions. Do not present
your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves
to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to
God as instruments for righteousness.
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but
under grace.”
Now, I could do a multiple blog
series addressing the typical barriers to the work of repentance, turning from
“death to life”, but allow me to just highlight two truths from this passage
that we need to understand in order to gain a proper perspective
of the naturally intimidating call of the scriptures to repent and I pray, they
will empower us to move forward in fulfilling that call.
Truth
#1: We died to sin with Christ
Paul in this part of his letter to
the Romans makes it very clear that as Christians, we are unified with Christ through
the work of His
death on the cross. So
it’s
important we understand what the death of Jesus accomplished. A lot of things were
accomplished by the death of our Savior, but this truth emphasizes that the
“dominion of sin” was overthrown. To
put it as simply as I know how, we are
freed from sin. Because of what Christ
did on the cross, we can never be in a situation, due to our
personality, circumstances or temptations, where we
“can’t help” but sin.
Now, there are two sides to
this. First, we can’t
blame anyone else but ourselves when we sin, because God in His grace has put
us in a situation where we are without excuse.
1 Corinthians 10:13
“No
temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be
tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the
way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”
Secondly,
we don’t have to sin. The same power
that Christ had to resist temptation is now available to us. That power is the Holy Spirit which dwelt
within Christ and, for those of us who have received
Christ as Lord and Savior, it dwells within us, too. Now, hear me out,
this does not mean that we do not wage a daily
battle against our flesh and the temptation to sin; it
DOES mean
that it’s a battle we can win, and we are called to embrace the victory we have
in Christ.
Truth
#2: We are alive to God
An important thing to keep in mind
is that the goal of repentance is not just to abstain from sinning. The turning away from sin is only half of the
battle; then we need to replace that “old-self” and its practices with
something new. Fortunately, in the same
way that we are united with Christ in His death to sin, we are also united with
Him in His resurrection into “newness of life”.
Imagine a life of true liberty,
where our lives are no longer dominated by impulses which lead us
into things that we know are destructive or, at least, are
not
the best thing for us. Visualize a
life where
we have the strength and wisdom to live as we know we should, and to be able to
experience the joy that comes with living life as God intended it to be. That’s the life that Jesus lived, and we may
not necessarily believe it, but that’s the “newness of life” that we are
offered through Christ. Everything we
need to live for God, to fulfill His call for us and to overcome the lingering
presence of temptation and sin is already at the disposal of those who
are in Christ. That’s why Paul’s plea in
many of his letters is for Christians to live in accordance to the truth that
they know, to embrace who they really are, and live
out their true identity as they are led by Christ
and fueled by the Holy Spirit.
By the grace of God, and the power
of the Holy Spirit, we have the ability to not just stop sinning, but to live
in righteousness and to be like Christ.
This is not a pep-talk in order to inspire self-improvement
but
a message for us as Christians to open up our eyes and truly see what we are
called to do and that it is possible. It
is possible to break free of the addictions that enslave us. It is possible to be transformed into someone
who doesn’t commit the same sins over and over again. It is possible to have self-control over the
aspects of our personality that seem to make us more susceptible to certain
sinful acts or attitudes. But I want to
make it clear: This is not possible by our own strength, effort, or
will-power. It is only by the grace of
God, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the work of Christ that frees us
from our bondage to sin and leads us to embrace our identity as children of
promise.
I know a lot of times we are fearful
of repentance because we are afraid that if we admit our need to
repent,
it means that we are “bad”
Christians. However, I want to encourage
all of us in closing. The presence of
repentance in the life of a believer is a far more
faithful display of Christianity than putting on our “Sunday-best” persona,
minimizing, justifying or ignoring our sin and pretending to be people that do
not have that far to go in our pursuit of becoming like Christ. I know it doesn’t take a whole lot of
personal reflection to realize that I fall far short of
the mark that Jesus’ holy life calls us to imitate. But I cling to the promise of Romans chapter
eight verse one:
“There is therefore now no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
I
hold onto the freedom of that truth, which pushes me to strive to be like
Jesus. I know that no man can shame or judge me because the one being
who can (God) does not condemn me even though my sin is a
horrific failure by His standards.
But since I am united with Christ in His victory over sin, my life is a
matter of unlocking the greater joys found in following
the footsteps of my Savior as He progressively makes me more and more like
Himself, one act of repentance at a time, with each one unveiling new
glories.
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