REPENTANCE

Repentance – isn’t that rather an old-fashioned word? We don’t seem to hear much about it these days. But recently God has challenged us to pray for a spirit of repentance to wash over us.

Repentance was the primary word used in calling people to God. Repent and believe the gospel. But it did not loom large in my becoming a Christian. After all, I was a good girl – probably because I was too much of a coward to be naughty.

It was when I heard that if no one else had sinned, Jesus would still have gone to Calvary for me that, by faith, I knelt in surrender to him. He came into my life and, wonderfully, began to change me. I read the verse in Isaiah that ‘we all have turned to our own way, and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.’ I knew this ‘all’ included me. It is not so much individual sins but a life in which self is on the throne which is rebellion against God. Yes, we need to repent and believe the Gospel, to turn away from our old life and live this wonderful new life with Jesus.

But then came a time when I had a very unpleasant  experience. It shook me and I became very afraid. I forgave the one and thought it was all over but my peace and relationship with Jesus was not restored. It was then that He came near to bring me to repentance. He showed me that I had been concerned about someone else’s sin or motives, but gently he showed me that it was all the wrong thoughts and suspicions in my mind which were grieving the Holy Spirit and that I needed to repent.  Now at
last I had peace and joy restored to me as I confessed my sins to God and turned away from this wrong thinking too.

In the Bible it says ‘God raised up Jesus, a Prince and Saviour, to give repentance and remission of sins.’ One said, ‘As a prince he gives repentance.’ Repentance certainly became a gift in my life, and one which constantly needs to be renewed.

I have been taking assemblies in our local schools. A favourite lesson concerns God’s measuring stick. We have fun is realising that even the younger children can consider themselves tall if they stand beside someone shorter than themselves. But if we really want to know how tall we are, then we need a measure. I produce a measuring stick, way over our heads. We all come short.

Likewise, I explain, we can all think we are good if we compare ourselves with others. We don’t throw stones, say bad words perhaps, but God has given us his measuring stick, the commandments. The only One who comes up to God’s measure is Jesus. And none of us can compare with him, for the Bible says ‘All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.’

So back for the best part of the lesson. Suppose we had to reach way above six feet to be allowed into God’s house? None of us could go in. Now hopefully I find a nice tall teacher who will take a little child in his arms or on his shoulders and thus demonstrate that he/she can reach the measure and go in, with his help.

Even so, none of us are good enough, - able to keep all of his laws, to reach up to God’s measure. But God has given us Jesus. If we will come to him he will lift us up. In Christ alone we reach to God’s standard. We are accepted in the Beloved.

As we pray for God’s spirit of repentance to wash over us this picture is of inestimable comfort to me. No, I don’t have much scope to be ‘naughty’ in my old age, but there is that continual warfare against wrong thoughts and attitudes, and oh, what a comfort to know that the Saviour is close by, ever ready to take me afresh in his arms, to raise me up and clothe me in his righteousness.

I love the old hymn,

‘Jesus, the name to sinners dear, The name to sinners given. It scatters all our guilty fear, It turns our hell to heaven.’ 

Let’s pray for this spirit of repentance to wash over us and make us ever more dependent on the mercy and grace of our wonderful Saviour. Didn’t the angel say, ‘Call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’?

 

 

JESUS THE WAY!

I had just passed my driving test – yes, many years ago now. At that time  Christians often had a Bible text in the rear window of their car. Was I confident enough in my driving to declare myself a Christian? But if not now, when?

There was one text which so wonderfully expressed my own Christian experience and that was John 14: 6

          ‘Jesus said, ‘I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, but through me.’

Of recent weeks this verse has been the theme of our ministry in church.  Jesus – the Way, and I felt I wanted to share this, my testimony.

So how had I been confidant that this verse was especially for me and that I should display it in my car?

I had been brought up among a group who called themselves Bible Students. I knew a great deal of the Bible but when Billy Graham came to London I heard the Gospel in a fresh way and for the first time realised my need of a Saviour. I began to go to Evangelical meetings but was still attending services with these Bible Students. Finding serious differences, I cried out in agony to God:

‘Lord, it was so easy for your disciples. All they had to do was so follow Jesus, and I am trying to find out what is right and what is wrong.’ 

Wonderfully, I heard God answer me. ‘No,’ he said, ‘It is just the same for you. It is just for you to follow Jesus.’

‘Lord,’ I replied, ‘If that is true, then make it so plain to me that it  is either to choose you or to deny you.’

God did just that. A few weeks later I was in a  small cottage meeting where the whole theme was, ‘Come out from among them and be separate.’ Somehow I knew God was speaking to me. Sharing with a friend, he replied, ‘For me to attend a place where they deny that Jesus is God would be to deny my Lord.’

He had made the issue plain, for I had been brought up to believe that though Jesus was our Saviour, yet he was a created being, and the Trinity was a false doctrine. 

God had answered me. I chose Christ. Now with Thomas I could say, My Lord and my God.  Ever since then, every decision I have to make is a matter of choosing Christ.

Facing leaving everything I knew to go to the mission field, I expressed my fear that I did not have the courage to do it. Then God gave me a picture. Jesus was standing at the door of the airport and told me, ‘I am going. You can come with me, or leave me.’  I knew I could not leave him. He is my way. When I got to New Guinea, Jesus was there. He has never left me.

And also he is

‘Jesus the Truth.’ I had been brought up to believe that we, the Bible Students, had the truth. We were the truth people. But now, in following Jesus, not only their teaching with regard to the Trinity, but much other of their teaching I had to discard. No longer did I have all the answers, as I had thought. I was confused. But I learned that when things happen we cannot understand that we must go to Calvary. No, we may not understand but we can trust in the love of this God who died for us, and I did find some relief that I no longer had to explain away those things that did not seem to fit in. Jesus was the truth.

Later I married a theologian, and came to more understanding, but still, for me, Jesus, not doctrine, is the Truth.

And ‘Jesus the Life’? Before I knew Jesus as my Saviour I had been baptised, I had consecrated my life to him yet I had no joy in my life. Often I would pray that God would take me to heaven because I thought I would be happy there. But now I had a joy and a peace in my life, even though it is far from perfect. When I am feeling burdened, condemned, disconsolate, I am able to bring it all to Jesus. He teaches me to cast off the spirit of heaviness and put on my garment of praise.

So it was that with confidence I drove my little Morris 1,000 through the streets of London, and often I would hear little children reading aloud these precious words.

Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life.’ Now, many years later, my days of driving now past, it is still my testimony, and I pray yours too.