Repentance

Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

I sat on the front porch early this morning, an incredibly Fall feeling peaceful morning, and even in prayer, I just could not shake the overwhelming feeling of the word repentance. This feeling has a deep personal conviction, for the sins that I struggle with on many levels, but it seems to also be a broad stroke of society, a society rebelling against God. I tweeted, “Societies problem today is not a division nationally, locally, or even individually, but a division of our souls against God.” I look inward at myself, I look at the things I know about me that only God and I know. I look at how those struggles effect my daily walk with him, my thoughts, and even my actions that play out every day. My struggles with sin reflect who I am on the inside, even to the point that others may see my inner struggles played out unknowingly. Sin has it’s hold on each of us; we are born into sin, and the rest of our lives we will struggle with it. The difference in our lives, temporal and eternal, is if we understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ; that he died to forgive our sins, past present, and future, and by the righteous act, we are justified to a Holy God. There is nothing we can ever do to get into heaven outside of the understanding of that gospel. John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

These protests, turn riots, are the proofs of how far as a society we have moved from God. We have leaders that do not have God; we have leaders that are rebelling against God, and our nation is in moral decay, steep in sin, and God is letting his judgement fall on us. Do we really think this is some coincidence of this violence in our city; a city at the center of a national debate on moral character, and Biblical values? Do you think a movement that had a theme, now has stretched outside what it stands for, protesting against itself? Do you think it is a coincidence that the liberal leaders become spineless cowards in the face of critical times in leadership? Do you think that the nations problem, now local problem, now is more than an individual problem; a problem so deep it is truly the level of sin, and the lack of God? The problem is you and me, and the lack of repentance within ourselves, and the lack of truth being preached from the pulpits. We have become a society that is reaping what we deserve; the acts of God will always accomplish his purposes, and his purposes are always to judge sin, and to draw us closer to him that see that.

Change begins within us, one person at a time, and it begins on our knees, asking God to forgive us for our sins, and to help us be more like him, and less like us.