Relentless Reliance on Repentance

For some reason, Christians are often concerned with ‘the other people’, concerned about the sins of the world, despairing at others sin – it seems to continually hold a focus on the lives of others. This sort of focus while not necessarily bad, can lead to a gross imbalance where a focus on making converts overtakes the focus for the Gospel. This may seem confusing for some us, so allow me to elaborate.

The Gospel can be (possibly) summed up by four questions;
Where do we come from? The answer to this questions is God. God creates us, God loves us, and God moulded human kind in His image. This is essential to understanding the other points – from love, God created people.

What went wrong? This is the fall. People, with full knowledge of who God is and their perfect relationship, they chose in selfish ambition to pursue that which he warned us not to. As a result, people are separated from God by sin. The punishment that we deserve for this sin is death and eternal separation from God. 

What can fix it? This is Jesus. Jesus Christ, being fully God and yet fully human, came into our world where He lived a perfect life as a man. Despite His perfect life, Jesus was wrongly accused and wrongly murdered for who He was. This murder involved Jesus being sent to the cross to die a death that every human being deserves. His murder was brutal and undeserved. Three days later, Jesus rose from the grave, conquering Satan, sin and death. This is to provide the payment that allows God to forgive sin, as all sin requires a penalty. This is important – our sin (your own, and my own) was so grave that God Himself needed to die. Bear that in mind.

How do I get right? This should naturally follow – if that is how it is fixed, then what do I do? The answer; repent, and believe. This suggests, then, that one must understand that Jesus’ sacrifice was so real that it demands a response, and this response is repentance and faith in Jesus Christ (which, incidentally, are the same thing). If someone repents, it means that they have faith in Jesus’ ability to save them – thus, belief and repentance, by rights, go hand in hand.

This becomes a problem for religious people, because they really really really like rules. So much so, in fact, that they asked Jesus when He was alive which rule was the best of them all and that they could follow. Jesus’ answer is rather curious – He claims that in order to have one, you in fact require two: love God, and love others. How curious! For someone who is a Christian, I can openly state that I have not always been loving to God, and certainly not to others. I would suggest that this is the case for all people, unless they are Jesus. This brings me to the first major point – when it comes to sin, there are two categories: Jesus, and us.

Now that we have this established, I want to talk about repentance. For some whacky reason, many Christians have decided that repentance is for those who are yet to meet Jesus. Curiously, Martin Luther (the great German reformer) claimed that Christian life should be one of continual repentance (see his 95 theses on the Bible). Acts 8:21-23 is just one example from the New Testament of repentance being essential to returning to rightness with God. This is where I openly state that church leaders need to call their congregations to repentance continually.

That may seem like a jump, but in reality, it is anything but. If people are not called to repentance it is unlikely they will do so of their own accord! This is in fact the crux of the modern church: we should be continually calling all people to repentance and faith in Jesus’ power of forgiveness. This can be in all matters of life! There seems to be a weird focus on getting numbers or getting converts, and then leaders scratching their heads when everyone leaves. The uniqueness of the Gospel and the uniqueness of Jesus is that both of these do not claim a truth, or a small form of truth, but they claim total truth. This truth should transform, engage and shape the way that we live our lives. This, then, brings out some highly practical advice:
For non-Christians, the gospel calls them to Jesus.
For Christians, the gospel calls them back to Jesus.
Most people in the world want good relationships, they want good finances, they want good marriages, they want to be good people and mostly want people to love them. The gospel does not disagree with this! It merely shows and encourages a better way to do it. A short example is one of marriage. A non-Christian marriage can indeed succeed. This couple can love each other, forgive each other, give to one another and sacrifice for each other. However, this is entirely dependent on receiving love in return. In a Christian marriage, you are continually being loved, transformed and changed by the Holy Spirit, and should be continuously responding to the grace of the Gospel. This will, in turn, reflect on your spouse in immeasurable ways. When a spouse sins against you, your response is not one of anger, but one of forgiveness, for you know that yourself deserve nothing more than death and eternal separation from God for your own sin! This motivation is unparalleled in this world.

Thus, seek to be called back to repentance and faith in Jesus. Don’t get complacent and okay with your level of mediocre faith! Pursue more of Jesus, pursue His grace and love and holiness. Encourage others to pursue this as well, and allow your life to speak bounds of love to others. Pursue Christ. Pursue grace. Pursue love. As you have faith, build faith, and practise faith, let your hope for the future increase, let your desire for hope increase, and as a direct result allow your love of Jesus to reflect to the world around you.