Faith & Repentance

God is a loving God. Sin is deadly. Jesus saves. These statements are all true. But the question is, “How do these become true in my life?” Jesus taught that they come by repentance and faith.

What is repentance? Repentance is a 180 degree turn. It means to renounce any belief that you are able to make yourself right before God. It means to confess to God your sin, wrong attitude, evil desire, and guilt. It is turning from yourself and turning to Jesus Christ in faith.

The other side of the coin of repentance is faith. What is faith? Faith is the knowledge of God’s promise, the belief that God’s promise is true and the trust that God’s promise will work. If I am rappelling down a cliff, I can know that the rope will hold my weight and still not rappel. I can believe in the knowledge that the rope will hold my weight and still not rappel. I will only rappel if I trust the rope to hold my weight. Trust is putting the belief in the knowledge into action. It is not enough to stop short of trust. Saving faith is trusting in Jesus Christ alone for salvation.

Repentance and faith go hand in hand. Faith is turning to Christ and repentance is turning from sin. You cannot do one without the other. This also means that when you trust in Jesus Christ for your salvation, he becomes your Savior and your Lord.

So, where does this sit with you? Do you understand the Good News? Do you believe it is true? More importantly, do you trust your life to it? Would you like to receive Jesus Christ? It is a call to repent of your sin and self trust and believe in faith in the person of Jesus Christ. The reward is to know God as a father. John 1:12 says, “But to all who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

If you truly want to repent and believe in Jesus Christ, you can do so right now. You can pray and ask for understanding of the Gospel. You can ask God for the ability to repent and turn from sin and self trust. You can ask God for the faith to trust in Christ. Here is a sample prayer:

Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner. I need your forgiveness. Thank you for living a sinless life and dying a sinner’s death on the cross for my sins. I now turn from my sinfulness and self-trust, and I place my trust in you alone for the forgiveness of my sins and the free gift of eternal life. I now receive you as my Risen Lord and Savior. Thank You for taking my sins upon yourself and giving me the gift of your righteousness through faith. Take control of my life and make me the kind of person you want me to be.

The Bad News Before the Good News

Few people would ever deny the presence of sin in the world. We can all pick up a newspaper and see evil and suffering. In this regard, it is easy to see sin. Sin becomes a little trickier, however, when we turn our gaze from 'out there' to 'in here'. It is much easier to ignore personal sin. It often becomes an issue of comparison. “I never killed anyone.” Sin is easier to see or acknowledge in someone else, usually Hitler.
While we’d like to think that sin is a problem out there, it is in reality a problem in here. We all know the thoughts that we have. We all know the how we often do or say that thing that we don’t really want to do or say. We all know that we have made mistakes. We all know that things are not as they are supposed to be. We have felt sin’s corruption and guilt, even if we would like to dismiss it and think of it only in terms of someone else’s problem.
The basic issue of sin is one of idolatry. It is usually the sin beneath the sin. When God laid out his Ten Commandments, they were done in the pattern of an Ancient Near Eastern treaty. The treaty was a promise by God to man that He would be their God and they would be His people. In the pattern of this treaty, the first command is a general overarching command and the following specific commands expand and explain the general. The first command of the Ten Commandments is, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” This first command is that we would love God first. All the other commandments detail the manner in which we are to love God. This is the same way with sin. Our first sin is that we have not loved God. The manner in which we have broken that command is secondary to the fact that we have put something else in the place of God. This is idolatry. We have crafted little idols into which we place our hope, trust and security. We all have turned to idols. The brokenness of the world drives us to idols. The corruption of our heart looks for peace in idols. Our guilt chronicles the pattern of choosing idols throughout our lives. Idolatry is present in all our lives, and it is the underlying issue in each of our hearts.
Now that we’ve come to terms with sin being an 'in here' problem, it is crucial to look at the effects of sin. The apostle Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus that people are dead in their sins (Ephesians 2:1-5). He also wrote to the church in Rome that the result of sin is death (Romans 6:23). We are spiritually dead before God. We stand before him with a guilty record and a corrupt heart in the midst of a broken world. And being dead, there is nothing that you can do about it.
What is your issue? What is your idol? What are you worshipping? The basic message of the Gospel is to turn from your idols and worship the one true God.

A Message about God

There is a God. It is a pretty simple statement with which most people agree. Increasingly, though, people have questioned this most basic of statements. There are many avenues we could look at to try and prove there is a God. But it ultimately boils down to this, there either is or there isn’t a God.
If there is no God, then none of this matters. Really, nothing matters beyond yourself…so if you can get away with something, do it…and enjoy. Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die. And that’s it. You live, you die, nothing of consequence happens in between. It may seem consequential to you, but after you’re dead, it is completely inconsequential to you. That, however, probably doesn’t sit with you. You have a sense that there must be something more. But if there is no God, there is nothing more.
But what if there is a God? If there is a God, what is he/she/it like? If there is a God, has he told us anything about himself? The Bible speaks of a God who is there and who has spoken. There is a God. He is a God who is both infinite and personal. He created all things and knows all things.
There are many attributes of God but two speak with great import to our situation. The first is that God is just and requires punishment for sin. The second is that God is merciful and loves to show grace.
God’s justice is tied to the fact that he is holy. Holiness is being set apart, separate, pure, and undefiled. For God to remain holy, he must eradicate anything which would defile him. God’s justice sees sin as a gross offense and seeks to punish and eliminate it. Our sin is a rebellion against God. God will not tolerate a stain on his perfection. His justice demands that sin be punished. “Yet, he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation,” (Exodus 34:7b) and “…for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil” (Romans 2:8, 9).
The situation is dire for all humans. There is not a one who has not done evil. None of us can escape the wrath of God based on our own goodness. God will justly mete out punishment.
But God is also merciful. God loves to show grace and mercy. God created all people in his image. He loves us. We are made to reflect his goodness and this pleases him. “As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” Ezekiel 33:11. God desires to show us mercy.
These two attributes are not in opposition to each other. It is not that one of these attributes takes a back seat to other. Both are fully realized. God’s justice has been fully realized and his mercy has been and will be fully realized. They do not oppose each other; rather they meet in one specific point. They meet at the Cross.