Repentance

How long will this concept of living a life style of just staying one-step ahead of the Devil and when we feel the fire of hell creeping up on us we decide to repent. What is it going to take for the body of Christ, to finally come to understand that once they accepted the Lord and were saved, they are eternally adopted into God’s family? As long as we have any form of doctrines taught within the born again community of backsliding and going to hell, there will never be any security that God totally loves us and keeps us from that type of punishment, after we have had the born again experience.

It is so important to understand this because, repentance is not something to be feared but a spirit of need that has to be functioning in us that should be totally controlling our lives. Repentance is a spirit that makes us recognize that we need to live within a protected hedge supplied by God because, the Devil is going around like a roaring lion trying to do all he can to attack our relationship with God. It’s his continual lie that God will only love and protect us on conditions. However, it is our lack of understanding God’s love, which makes us, be like sheep being led to the slaughter.

If our understanding and experience of a total love relationship with God is not growing and becoming more passionate, we will stay babes in Christ all of our lives. When we teach backsliding and going to hell type doctrines in any form, it implants fear and these doctrines become control factors to keep God’s kids in check. In turn, there is no total open transparency and abandonment and we are not able to see the immature and shame based nature we inherited from Adams fall from grace. It’s us experiencing God friendship and love that should be wooing us to stay committed to a relationship with Him. Who wants to return love to a tyrant or control freak? Let’s look at some scripture and see what the bible has to say about love and repentance.

Proverbs 17:9 states, “He who covers and forgives an offense seeks love, but he who repeats or harps on a matter separates even close friends.” This is the way God thinks about us, He forgives and covers our offenses with His love. He would never tell us to treat ourselves and each other any different then the way He treats us. So if He tells us to forgive and not harp on ourselves and others with fault finding thoughts and actions of sin or offenses then, He doesn’t treat us that way either.

In Acts 17:28-30 Paul the Apostle states, “In Christ we live and move and have our being because, we are His offspring. Since we are God’s offspring, we are no longer to think that, God is some kind of golden image or human artwork or something constructed by man’s inventions. These were the type of former notions that man had about God before they met Christ as savior, at that time period God ignored and allowed this attitude of man to be accepted by Him. However, now He charges all men to repent that being, to change their minds for the better and heartily amend their ways, with a total disgust for their sins.” because, we are His offspring. Since we are God’s offspring, we are no longer to think that, God is some kind of golden image or human artwork or something constructed by man’s inventions. These were the type of former notions that man had about God before they met Christ as savior, at that time period God ignored and allowed this attitude of man to be accepted by Him. However, now He charges all men to repent that being, to change their minds for the better and heartily amend their ways, with a total disgust for their sins.”

The reason why God doesn’t look at sin now as He did before was because man had no power within himself to overcome and take control over his sin or fleshly cravings. Jesus had not died on the cross and we did not have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of us as He is now. The atonement for sin in the Old Testament was for the Levites to offer up animal sacrifices for themselves and the people once a year to have their sins forgiven. That was God’s plan for His people back then, but not any longer. We who are born again people now have the Holy Spirit in us who’s own personality is the living Spirit of repentance. You don’t put on repentance on occasions of great human emotional ecstasy or emotional pain.

In Matthew 5:6, Jesus says “them that hunger and thirst after righteousness will be filled.” Unless we are hungering and thirsting after God, the Spirit of repentance can not totally function in our being.

Anything contrary to this principle means that, we are not moving and living with Him in our being. We are still His offspring however; there is no true fellowship and active participation in our relationship with Him. We actually go back and begin to think and function in the condition of the Old Testament and living under the old law of going to God to have our sins forgiven on religious sanctimonious occasions, which is nothing more then, a hypocritical pretense of purity.

Romans 3:23 states that, “ All men have sinned and have fallen short of God’s glory, which He gives to us as a gift of honor.” We see that it says all men. Therefore, we are talking to all men on this subject of repentance and all need to heed and respond to God’s call. The word for sinned in the Greek is hamartano: meaning, to miss the mark, not share in a prize, to err and not receive your total allotment. If we don’t live in this spirit of repentance, we are living under a spirit that causes us to miss something that God wants to give us described as our total allotment or prize because, we are missing the bench mark of His purposes. It says we are missing His glory. Well what is His glory?

The word glory is doxa: meaning, a state or quality of being honorable, worthy, having a high rank and being able to worship. Paul the Apostle in his letter to the Ephesians in chapter 1:11 says this. “In Jesus Christ we have obtained an inheritance because, we have been chosen by Him from the beginning of time to be changed into His likeness, so we can do His will by using this inheritance that we have received from Him.” This word inheritance is kleroo: meaning, an allotment or to be given special privileges.

Paul in Romans 8:14-17 states, “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God because, we have accepted Jesus into our hearts. We did not receive a spirit of bondage again to live in fear but we have received a Spirit of adoption into God’s family where, there is an anointing from within where we can call God our Papa. The Holy Spirit Himself who now lives in us supports us of this fact as we are having continual fellowship with Him as He reminds us that, we are God’s children. This is a very real living experience with God daily.”

What higher privilege and excellence can God give us then to become His sons and daughters to share all that He has so that, we can rule and reign with Him on this planet and for eternity? This is the glory that we fall short of when; we do not live in His Spirit of repentance. This is such a far cry of living a life of staying one-step ahead of the Devil so that we don’t backslide and go to hell. Come on lets get real and sober minded.

Would a loving parent, send their children to an eternity in hell if, they messed their spiritual diaper in their endeavor of going through their growing pains of life.

In Matthew 12:30 Jesus says, “He that is not with me is against me and he that does not gather with me is scattered.” If we haven’t made a decision and accepted Jesus as our personal savior our attitude as God sees it, we’re His enemy. God isn’t our enemy or against us. When we are His enemy, we are slaves to sin and we need Jesus in our life so He can empower us to know Him and live a life of holiness. That’s why He died on the cross to deliver us from our sinful shame based nature. Now as born again believers, unless we are hungering after God what happens is, we become not the enemies of God like the unsaved, but we become scattered. There is a difference between being an enemy of God verses being scattered. This word scattered is skorpizo: meaning, put to flight, be liberal or to be scourged.

If we are not co-operating with the Holy Spirit and walking in His personality of repentance, we become scattered and we break our marriage vows to Christ that we made to Him the day we were saved. This causes us to lose our intimate fellowship by not walking in the inner circle with Him. We become double minded in our decision-making and it becomes difficult walking in total obedience to God’s will. We are deceived by the Devil and lose our allotted share of our inheritance from God. We received all of our inheritance from our Heavenly Father the day we were saved. We now have to be taught and become aware of how rich we are and how to use and distributed our wealth to others and ourselves.

We said that scattered means to be put to flight, liberal or scourged. Well we know that the Devil can put us to flight if we are not walking as close to the Lord as we ought. Now there are two ways that God our Father can correct or chastise us as He endeavors to get our attention and protect us, so we don’t lose our allotment as His children. We can either willfully allow God to woo us into submission by His liberalism meaning, experiencing His infinite friendship, mercy and love. On the other hand, God can chastise us through a provision He instituted to protecting His children through the law of being scourged.

In Heb.12: 5-7 it states that, “we are not to forget God’s divine word of appeal and encouragement in which He reasons with us as His sons and daughters. He says to us that, we are not to scorn or think lightly of what He is telling us. He says, don’t get discouraged, but always be ready to submit to my discipline when you are being warned of impending danger and corrected by me. For I correct and discipline every one whom I love and I punish and even at times you will have to go through scourging because, you are My sons and daughters who I have welcomed into my heart. Whether we’re being chastised by God liberally or being scourged, God has welcomed and accepted all of His kids into His heart. ”

The main difference between God’s punishment by His hand and being scourged is the severity of the punishment. God punishment of liberalism is with patience and a loving wisdom as a father and mother would protect their children here on earth. However, we have to willingly submit to Him because of our trust and passionate friendship relationship that we are having with Him. Now if we scorn or have a feeling of contempt and scoff at His correction, the consequences of this attitude brings a scourging that is reaped in earthly emotional and physical pain in our own being.

In 1Cor.1-5, Paul the Apostle was giving a word of instruction to the church about a person who was committing incest or spiritual immorality by sleeping with his mother. He says, “This act that has been reported to me is even more gross then sins that are being committed by unsaved people. Instead of you people taking it seriously and mourning over this condition and having sorrow. You are prideful and arrogant.

Even though I am not there physically, I have already passed judgment and made a decision as though I was there. Let’s agree together in Christ’s name on the punishment that has to take place. You are to deliver this man over to Satan (for physical discipline) so that, his carnal lusts (which prompted him to commit incest) so that, his spirit might yet be saved in the day of the Lord. Your attitude over the way you have handled this is not good. Don’t you understand that when you allow this type of behavior to go unchallenged that, the whole church is affected by these actions? Rid yourself of this condition and stay fresh and alert because, Jesus died for you on the cross.”

Even though I am not there physically, I have already passed judgment and made a decision as though I was there. Let’s agree together in Christ’s name on the punishment that has to take place. You are to deliver this man over to Satan (for physical discipline) so that, his carnal lusts (which prompted him to commit incest) so that, his spirit might yet be saved in the day of the Lord. Your attitude over the way you have handled this is not good. Don’t you understand that when you allow this type of behavior to go unchallenged that, the whole church is affected by these actions? Rid yourself of this condition and stay fresh and alert because, Jesus died for you on the cross.”

Even though I am not there physically, I have already passed judgment and made a decision as though I was there. Let’s agree together in Christ’s name on the punishment that has to take place. You are to deliver this man over to Satan (for physical discipline) so that, his carnal lusts (which prompted him to commit incest) so that, his spirit might yet be saved in the day of the Lord. Your attitude over the way you have handled this is not good. Don’t you understand that when you allow this type of behavior to go unchallenged that, the whole church is affected by these actions? Rid yourself of this condition and stay fresh and alert because, Jesus died for you on the cross.”

We see here that this man because he would not repent that the outcome was he had to be taken out of this fellowship of Christians and out of God’s protective hedge. God doesn’t want this to happen. It’s the bad choices we make that cause this type of discipline. Just as Adam in the Garden of Eden did not ask God to forgive his act of disobedience’ It was a matter of his choice, that made him have to leave the protected hedge of the Garden and go into the world to sweat and toil to make a living. This man was being disciplined this harshly to save and complete the work that God always intended for him. Paul later in his second letter to the Corinthians tells them to go and get this man and bring him back into the fellowship lest he suffers too much and gets too discouraged to continue his walk in the Lord. We see here a message of love and mercy not that he was cast out and sent to hell as is preached in so many of the pulpits of today.

Let’s now define what causes us to scorn and think lightly of God’s chastisement. There are many examples where this condition existed in churches where Paul the Apostle sent letters to. Let me use two of these many examples in the bible where born again believers who accepted Jesus, and then went back to live under Old Testament principles of trying to have their sins forgiven by God. The book of Galatians is one of the Churches that Paul the Apostle had to correct. They had accepted Jesus because, Paul had been sent to them by the Lord so they could hear the doctrine of salvation and they were saved through his preaching. When Paul left, they began to follow leaders who told them that, they had to do some other works in their own strength to stay saved. These people are legalists who follow laws of dos and don’ts rather then trusting in God’s mercy and grace alone.

In Galatians 5:4-9 Paul states, “ if you are trying to be declared righteous or trying to stay in right standing with God through laws of do’s and don’ts your endeavors will come to a negative results. In turn, your passionate relationship that you need in walking in the spirit of repentance with Christ will be severed and you will fall away from living in His grace and mercy. For we who are born again people, we do not live under the laws of do’s and don’ts, we now live with the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in us and reminds and confirms our salvation.”

The grace of God is the power we need to keep the Ten Commandments and all they represent. We don’t lose our salvation and backslide and go to hell when this condition exists. What happens we fall away from this passionate relationship that we need to become Christ like and we lose the power of His grace to walk in holiness. After being born again, God already now looks at us as blameless in His sight. If we allow the Holy Spirit to woo us and persuade us with infinite care and total patience in our daily struggles, the hope that we are experiencing in Him will empower us to not want to be tempted to walk in a spirit of scorn or contempt when, we are tempted by Satan to go against God’s wishes. Temptations will come, you can count on that. However, really experiencing God’s love and grace will make us become over comers.

Paul goes on to say to these people. “You were running the race with God’s inheritance and with His rank and privileges as His children well. Who side tracked you into believing that you had to help God out by going back to the rules and traditions you followed before you met Christ. When you used to follow these rules, there was no power that was energizing and empowering you by the love of the Lord, working on the inside of you. When you follow these types of teachings, the whole church is misled and perverted. If you are being led by the Holy Spirit you are not subject to the laws of do‘s and don‘ts.”

Being subject to the law means that, we are being taken under control by another spirit spirit other then the Holy Spirit. When we submit to this other spirit, it takes control over our choices, and we lose the freedom to love God willingly because, we are being coerced and have a fear of damnation in some form. Now this is the spirit of anti-christ. If we have been brought up in church settings, we should have been taught that, there would be a leader who will come on the scene and deceive many in the world and the church. He will proclaim himself to be god almighty. Does any one recognize that the spirit of anti-christ is already here and at work in the born again and not born again churches of today? This is a very serious. Only our total submission and abandonment submission and abandonment to the Spirit of God in worship, with humility and thankfulness to God, will open our eyes and ears to the spiritual world, that we inherited the day we met Christ. When we allow ourselves to be deceived and go back to living under this dominating controlling spirit, this is when the Lord uses this type of chastisement that becomes scourging.

Paul in Galatians 6:7-8 states that, “our minds become misled and we become deceived because, God will not allow this spirit at work within us to mock and scorn Him with this superficial pretense of Godly worship. If a man sows this type of life style there is a consequence that he will reap.” When man allows this life style, he sows to his own flesh, which is a (legalistic law life style of our lower nature), and in turn we will reap decay, ruin and destruction.

However, if we sow to the Spirit of God meaning (walking in His grace and mercy,) we will reap eternal life, meaning receiving our total inheritance to the fullest. If we sow to the flesh, then we choose the hard way to be brought into line from the Lord. God calls to us with a passion and a plea with His mercy first. If we refuse His advances, we then reap the consequence of our disobedience. This brings anguish and despair into our lives. However, God says even when we call out to Him in our bed of pain and anguish; He will hear us and run to our need.

In Mathew 21:42-44 Jesus was having a debate with the Pharisees and Scribes of that day giving them an example of the Kingdom of God. In reality, He was pointing them to Himself, (the origin of all life and fulfillment.) Because we are human beings, our fleshly cravings need to be continually put under subjection to the will of God by living in this Spirit of repentance. Why? Because there still is lurking in our makeup a spirit of pharisaical attitudes that rears it’s head and wants to control our thinking.

This word Pharisee in the Greek is Pharisaios: meaning, a separatist and exclusively religious. In the Hebrew the word, Pharisee is paarash: meaning to separate, scatter and wound. Pharisaic people are religious people who teach strict obedience to ritual and man made laws of hardship life styles, in trying to be obedient to God’s ways. An example of this would be like preaching that we have to perform some act of penance for our sins. It’s these kinds of teachings that cause God’s kids and the unsaved to walk in disobedience and missing God’s inheritance and His mercy and love. This has always been the problem through out history. The flesh does not want to come under control. This religious spirit wants to control and dominate people. That’s what a religious spirit does.

That’s the results of man trying in his own strength to reach a God of love that stepped out of heaven and died the most gruesome death ever perpetuated on the earth. God reaches down to us we can’t measure up to God. When are the born again children of God and the world going to start seeking the Lord with passion and start to live as His children recognizing what a secure position they can have in Him? We see in this definition that pharisaic spirits are separatists and cause a scattering effect on people. They don’t bind, heal and bring people together. They cause division and build sects and private doctrines unto themselves.

They are puffed up with pride and arrogant because, they think that, they have a monopoly on God. They say that, their truth is the only truth. You can’t have a conversation with these types of spirits and come to any common goal of seeking after the Lord together. They have a spirit that says, “We have arrived.” You either measure up or ship out. You get no word of confirmation or a word of affirmation from them. This word affirmation does not mean controlling ones thinking process and robbing people of their distinct and individuality in their pursuit of God to think independently. We who are born again people are all in God‘s family but, separately with each one of us having our own distinct calling.

This subject of individuality is a teaching in itself however let’s go on. As we continue to pursue our walk with God and become strong and mature in Him. It’s only then that we can function together without intimidating each other and become inter-dependent. It’s these religious teachings that cause God’s kids to scatter because; they live in religion meaning, man’s private interpretations of God‘s word.

Paul the Apostle in 2Cor.3:6 had to also remind the Corinthians just as he did the Galatians about how this spirit of law causes decay, ruin and destruction. He says to the Corinthians in verse 6, “God qualified and made him fit to preach a gospel not from the old legalistic code of laws and regulations but, a new message given to him from the Holy Spirit of God. This new understanding brings life and freedom. If he was to teach the religious and legalistic message it would only bring death to the people who heard and tried to live by it.”

Therefore, we can in our ignorance of understanding of how to walk in the deep love of the Lord, become misled and brought back and stay in a slave minded mentality of a measuring up controlling spirit. Meaning, (religion not Christianity) When this happens we become scattered and the chastisement and love of God constantly pursues us in our ignorance and God uses the safety net of the consequences of the seeds we have sown against His will for our lives. Now there is an attitude that God is trying to create in us to make us willingly without being coerced and make us able to conform to His purposes in thoughts and actions.

In James 4:8-10 James writes to the twelve tribes that had been scattered abroad among the Gentiles. This meaning, they were living their lives among unsaved people and growing up and needing a word from the Lord through James, on how to stay loyal to God and be overcomes and not loose their inheritance. James states. “Come close to God and He will come close to you. Recognize that you are erring and falling back from receiving your total allotment from God your Father. Get rid of things in your life that are not God’s priorities. These excesses that are not God’s perfect will have made you double minded in walking in obedience to His will. God is not first in your life. As you draw near to God, be deeply sorry and even weep over your disloyalty. Let your laughter be turned to sorrow over your failure to walk in obedience to God’s ways. Put away your showy outward appearance and allow the Holy Spirit and His passion to expose those things that have held you back from living for the Lord. Humble yourselves by allowing the Holy Spirit to show you the great need you have for Him and God will elevate you to the position that you ought to be by living as His sons and daughters.”

What we have in these three verses is the foundation that has to exist in our being to even attempt to grow up in Christ. In the physical, we have to eat and breathe air to survive. In our spirit, we have to walk in these three verses at all times before the Lord in our nakedness as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden before they hid from God because, of their disobedience. This is the type of spirit that takes control and plants us deep in our security in Christ. This is the attitude we function in if, we are being obedient to Jesus as we stated earlier when He said, “them that hunger and thirst after righteousness will be filled.”

Scripture tells us that, “the reverential fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” This word reverence in the Hebrew is shachah: meaning, to have a deep regard for royalty, humbly bow down, to defer too and worship. When we live with this Spirit within us, we become aware that we don’t have to be afraid of God. We learn to run to Him at all times for His protection and obey every word that comes out of His mouth. This secures and anchors our resolve in life. I believe that, living our life in Christ has become difficult for many of us because, we have not learned how to allow the Holy Spirit to live big in us.

In Phil 2:12-13 Paul the Apostle states “ pay special attention so you can carrying out to full completion your salvation with reverence and awe and trembling meaning, having a self distrust in your own thinking and abilities. Be serious, cautious and have a tender conscience, staying ever alert in temptations and shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ. This you can not do in your own strength because, it’s only the Holy Spirit who brings this about by you allowing Him to energize and create in you the desire and giving you the power both to want to be obedient and to do the will of God in your daily walk with Him.”

With the free will, God gave us, the only thing we have the power to do is, to stay with an attitude that says, yes to God always in whatever He decides to do in our lives. When we live with the yes button on within us then, we can allow the Holy Spirit to release His Spirit of repentance into our lives so we have the power to be humble, meaning, selflessness, submissive and unpretentious. This is what living in the grace and favor of God creates in us. Only the Holy Spirit can cause this Spirit of repentance to rise up, and show us what, Christianity and love and mercy is all about.