God’s Hand In Repentance

I always thought we had to look at allllllll our sins and repent for each and everyone of them BEFORE God could change our hearts and put His Spirit within us and give us the strength to obey Him. Like we gotta clear our house before allowing Jesus in. I read Ezekiel today and v31 really blew my mind.

Ezekiel 36:25-32

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. ²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.²⁸ Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. ²⁹ I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you. ³⁰ And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields, so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations. ³¹ Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities and your abominations. ³² Not for your sake do I do this,” says the Lord God, “let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel!”

Here Ezekiel is splitting up the relationship between God’s action and our action very clearly. v25-30, He will cleanse, He will change our hearts, He will help us walk in obedience, He will give us the inheritance and prosperity, He will make us successful in what we do, He will make us forget our shame. THEN and only then, will WE, v31, will realise our sins and hate our past sinful self.

It actually does kinda make sense.

Firstly, we are sinful and sin filled creatures. We only want the best for ourselves and to satisfy ourselves. We will never willingly repent until the Holy Spirit does some kind of work on our hearts and some kind of rewiring in our minds. The first step of repentance and humility requires a soft heart. v26 says God will put a spirit in us which would soften the heart of stone into the heart of flesh. God was labouring in us even before we said yes to Him.

Secondly, we can’t possibly know ALL God’s laws and repent of all the sins. I don’t think we could even know our heart attitudes or problems that well until after we’re dead. If we had to be super holy before Jesus could come into our hearts, no one would ever be Christian. God’s work in perfecting our lives is a step by step process. We realise and overcome one sin, then another. We learn one Godly attitude, then another. And this whole process can only be done with God’s strength and grace.

We need Him for us to be rid of sin. We even Him even for us to just repent for the first time.

Dare You Question The Almighty God?

Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead with You;
Yet let me talk with You about Your judgments.
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?

Jeremiah 12:1

Did the prophet Jeremiah actually say “let me talk with You about Your judgments”? He’s basically saying ‘God I need to talk to you about how You’re running things around here”. We all know that Christians “aren’t supposed” to “blame” God for any evil that happens. I don’t think Jeremiah was blaming God at all. He’s questioning God, sure. But not blaming.

Here’s something I truly believe though. If you have a burning question in your heart. If something is bothering you and it makes you angry or super sad or fired up. Don’t be afraid to take it out on God. He is like the Father who wants to listen to our rants, our rambles, our outbursts. Even if our language sounds like it’s directed at Him, no problem, He can handle it. He doesn’t have insecurity or self-esteem issues that would make Him vulnerable by what we said. He won’t get offended and lash out on us for saying the wrong things. He knows what we’re gonna say before we say it anyway, which means He knows if we’re gonna use the right words to express ourselves. He knows what we truly meant by it. How can we surprise Him? He knows our heart!

He wants to hear us out because it is part of communication, which is vital to build relationship. He wants to hear our complaints. He wants to know we’re confused. He wants to know when we feel something is unfair. He wants to know how our misunderstanding or lack of understanding about Him or the world or ourselves. But He wants to know it from us firsthand. We are His children, He has already reached out to us and created that family relationship bond. We just have to respond and trust in this relationship. It’s like when a couple adopts a foster child. Every legal document settled, every payment taken care of, all the new parents want is to show love and prove to the child that he or she can trust them.

Relationship is the key word here. We can communicate. Just like Jeremiah did. Don’t be afraid of expressing yourself to God. It’s much better than asking Google, asking friends, or ranting on Facebook. God knows what we mean. God knows what we need.

Paul Expands Jesus’ Ministry and Teaching to 13 Books. John Summarizes Jesus’ Ministry and Teachings in 11 Verses.

John the Baptist Prepares the Way

3 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, ² while Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. ³ And he went into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, ⁴ as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, saying:

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make His paths straight.
⁵ Every valley shall be filled
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough ways smooth;
⁶ And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”

John Preaches to the People

⁷ Then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. ⁹ And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

¹⁰ So the people asked him, saying, “What shall we do then?”

¹¹ He answered and said to them, “He who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.”

¹² Then tax collectors also came to be baptized, and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?”

¹³ And he said to them, “Collect no more than what is appointed for you.”

¹⁴ Likewise the soldiers asked him, saying, “And what shall we do?”

So he said to them, “Do not ^[c]intimidate anyone or accuse falsely, and be content with your wages.”

Mind Blown By C. S. Lewis AGAIN

An Excerpt From Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis You may remember I said that the first step towards humility was to realise that one is proud. I want to add now that the next step is to make some serious attempt to practise the Christian virtues. A week is not enough. Things often go swimmingly for the first week. Try six weeks. By that time, having, as far as one can see, fallen back completely or even fallen lower than the point one began from, one will have discovered some truths about oneself. No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist.

The Knowledge of Christ

The words of Paul in Philippians 3 says

Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.

I find myself asking what is this knowledge that Paul is talking about? This knowledge that can cause us to be found in His Presence and also in His Righteousness (v9).

What if Knowledge is an important key? Without knowledge, we would be believing in all sorts of made up imaginations. Let’s call this False Knowledge. With True Knowledge we would really know for sure.

Now WHY do we need to know for sure? I think it’s because knowledge brings forth faith. No matter if it’s false knowledge or true knowledge, it will bring forth faith. We practice faith everyday. Even in the simple things. We have faith that the chair we sit in will support our weight. We believe that the amount of salt we add into our soup adds the right amount of saltiness we want. But we also make mistakes of having faith on a pen that is out of ink, so we only brought one pen to class. Or leaving the powerbank at home because we remember (falsely) that we charged our phone at home.

Why do we need true knowledge? Because it affects our faith which affects our actions. The value of knowing Christ Jesus that surpasses every other knowledge. I have yet to achieve this level of value and regard to the knowledge of Christ Jesus. But I believe I will. Let’s press on into God’s will and words. Keep studying His word, keep looking to Him for perspective and leadership, and keep doing everything you can for His glory. And may He Grace you with revelation upon revelation.

Love Is Not Safe!

By C. S. Lewis

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket of coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. From The Four Loves

Kneel And Bow

Lord Jesus may Your name abide in my heart. May Your glory be my highest desire. May Your Spirit fill me to overflowing.

Abide in me.

Less of me.

More of You.

Take the throne of my heart.

I step down as king and crown You, the Rightful King.

Will We Ever Understand Him?

God works in mysterious ways

What Have You Blamed God For Today?

Adam is amazing. Very creative guy. He managed to blame both God and Eve in one sentence.

And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
Genesis 3:11‭-‬12

Oh the silly things we do when we feel guilty.

Truth

Proverbs 29:18

Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint;
But happy is he who keeps the law.

 

If there was only one reason to teach the Word of God. This would be it. To reveal the truth. And that people see that there is a way to obtain real fulfilling joy. Without the truth, the world is stumbling into chaos.