The Gift of Repentance

 “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

1 John 1:5-9 ESV

I will never forget the look on my mother’s face when I messed up. In my defense I was coerced by my older brother to do something I didn’t normally do, but I chose my mistake and yelling at a biker gang is where it landed me…..allow me to back up. 

I was all of seven years old. My Mom had left the five of us kids in the car, told us to mind our own business and behave while she went into McDonald’s to get a us some dinner. Next to our van was a tough crowd (said biker gang) of some sort hanging out, shooting the breeze. My older brother talked me into leaning out the window to scream some sort of obscenities at them. I talked him down from cursing to some other inflammatory insult, but I disobeyed my Mom’s orders and gave in. Bracing myself to do my worst I rolled down the window, leaned out and screamed at the “dirtbags” next to our car to “get the heck out of here!” I’m certain they were ready to hightail it out of the parking lot due to the threats of an intimidating, feisty, freckle-faced seven year old…but I digress. Of course this was also the exact moment that my Mom decided to return to the car with our Happy Meals (not so happy anymore) and snapped at me to get back in the car before the local “dirtbags” were provoked to do some serious damage. I’d been caught. Realizing there were consequences to my actions, I slunk down in my seat, mortified that I had made such a stupid decision.  I remember loosing my dinner that night (including the toy surprise) and I didn’t even get to eat with my family (80’s kids grew up tough y’all). I’d made the decision to be coaxed into rebellion, and I also made the decision to cross the line. I had to apologize to my family, and I had to repent for my actions.

It was a lesson I’ll never forget.

How many times do we do the same thing? 

Whether it takes coaxing from someone around us, or simply the choices within us we all cross the line at some point and choose to sin. Every. Single. One of us.  

We all say things we shouldn’t say.

We all do things we shouldn’t do.

We all make decisions in our heart that manifest themselves in the choices we make and the lives we lead.

Sooner or later our choices come to stare us in the face. (Most of the time the consequences are a lot more severe than simply loosing our toy surprise.)

I still remember sitting at home, waiting for my Mom to bring down the hammer. With a little more perspective now I can see my mistake. At the time, all I could focus on was being caught. But when we break the law, there is a price to be paid.

What do we do when we rebel? 

We repent.

Repentance is a conscious decision to acknowledge our rebellious sin against God, change direction and walk towards Jesus. Repentance is not just saying we’re sorry. Repentance is not sweeping our spiritual mistakes under the carpet. Repentance is NOT earning our way back to Jesus, he already died to accomplish that for us. But, repentance is an acknowledgement and confession of what we’ve done to turn away from Jesus (sin), and a choice to change direction to move back towards him.

From one caught-in-the-act kid to any other, let me tell you, repentance is worth it. (We’ll get to more of that next week.)

So much love,

Joy