From Pastor John Collins:
“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the Prophets: ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You.’ ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight.’ John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” Mark 1:1-4 (NKJV).
John the Baptist preached repentance, Jesus preached
repentance and His Apostles preached repentance, even the Prophets preached
repentance.
I don’t believe that there is a true understanding by most
people of what repentance is. Repentance is recognizing your sin and the wrongs
that you have committed against God and being sorry about it. It is knowing
that you need forgiveness and that what your actions, feelings, thoughts and
words have reaped is worthy of sending you to hell. This is an acceptance of
God’s law in your heart and soul and it produces a genuinely contrite heart.
This will then produce the desire within you to stop those sinful behaviors and
to seek to obey the laws of God.
Now, how is it possible to feel these feelings with a
genuine heart and not just give a mental nod followed by lip service? You must
agree with God. That is where true faith, repentance and forgiveness begin. You
must agree that God and His laws are right and that it is for you to obey them.
If you don’t agree with God, you will never truly submit to Him, repent of
anything nor claim true salvation.
If you don’t agree with God, you will find ways to justify
your point of view and to excuse yourself for your sin. Every human sins and
every human has an opportunity to have a relationship with Jesus. If you see
the laws of God as antiquated and therefore don’t agree with them and choose to
disregard them, even if you come to know Jesus and seek forgiveness for your
past sins, your heart will not genuinely be remorseful. Imagine a man who
cheats on his wife and she never finds out about it. He sees it as hurting no
one. He goes to church and claims Jesus as His Savior. In his old age, his
cheating stops and he does ask for forgiveness. But his heart does not really
feel sorry because he feels that what his wife never knew never hurt her and it
really was not any big deal. His heart is unable to feel the remorse required
to be forgiven.
Just because we ask for forgiveness does not mean that it is
given. We have to mean it. We show that we mean it by choosing to live lives
that do not embrace sin. Like Paul says, if you stole, steal no more. We are to
quit the sinful behavior and seek to alter our actions, words, thoughts and
feelings. We begin to make these right choices when we agree with God. That is
why to be friends with the world is to be enemies with God.
“From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” Matthew 4:17 (NKJV).
