Repentant, Faith-Based Life | Spiritual Practicesنموونە

Repentance

“Come near to God and he will come near to you” (James 4:8 NIV).

Chances are you’re reading this plan because you’re looking at how to orient your life to God in a daily way or put your faith into practice.

There is no single more important spiritual practice than living a repentant, faith-based life.

Words like “repentance” and “faith” fill Christian teaching and the Bible. Many tend to think of things like repentance and faith as one-time events. They see them as synonymous with conversion, or coming to Christ for the first time. Yes, but they’re more than that. They become a part of our daily walk with Christ and are foundational principles upon which a Christian builds his or her life.

They are something practiced every day.

Jesus’s teaching ministry centers on repentance and faith. In Mark, he’s recorded as saying, “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15 NIV).

It stands at the start of Jesus’s ministry and summarizes the aim of all his teaching to follow. And so repentance and faith are the foundation of the Christian life, too.

Because God has called you. He wants you to follow him. Each and every day.

When Jesus called out to his first disciples with those words, “Come follow me,” we hear what he is saying to each and every one of us. And the life of these disciples was about learning how to put into practice those words each and every day. Following Jesus every day. That’s repentance and faith.

Today, let’s unpack a bit more what this word “repent” means.

Maybe you’ve heard the word “repent.” The Bible talks about repenting and repentance. Maybe you’ve even heard some Christians say that you need to repent.

In biblical times, “repent” wasn’t restricted to a religious or churchy meaning. It was a common everyday word that could be used in all sorts of contexts. The biblical writers liked to take everyday words and use them to communicate deep and powerful things about God. They did this all the time. At its core, “repent” simply means to “turn, “return,” or “turn around.”

As in, “Hey grandma, you’re going the wrong way! Repent that car around.”

Because sometimes we are going the wrong way. Even after choosing to follow Christ.

When we talk about repentance, what we’re saying is that we’re supposed to turn (or turn back) to God. Maybe for the first time. Maybe for the thousandth. Out of love and devotion to God. And often from other things.

Repentance is about seeking God in daily ways, and it implies turning to him over other things.

Scan the pages of the Bible, and you’ll find all sorts of ways God wants people to turn and return.

• As when God tells his people not to turn to other gods (Lev 19:4).
• Like when God tells his people, “Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices” (Zech 1:4 NIV).
• Or when Isaiah says, “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them turn to the LORD…” (Isa 55:6 NIV).
• Or when God cries out, “Even now, return to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12 NIV).
• And “Come back wandering children! I can heal your wanderlust!” (Jer 3:22 MSG).

This is God’s deepest desire for you. That you would turn to him, not run from him. That you would turn to him, not ignore him. That you would turn to him, not others. That you would turn to him because you dare to trust him. (More on that tomorrow.)

Jesus tells a story about a Pharisee and a tax collector. Pharisees were viewed as the holy of holy. By reputation, these were the people who sought after God. Tax collectors were the opposite. Sell-outs. Compromised. People who traded allegiance to God for personal gain and henchmen of pagan kingdoms.

The Pharisee goes to the temple and prays, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get” (Luke 18:11-12 NIV). It seems there’s little he needs to repent from.

But the tax collector stood at a distance. “He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner’” (Luke 18:13 NIV). And Jesus says it was this man whose heart was closer to God.

The Christian life is meant to be a life of daily repentance. Realizing where we’ve gotten off track. Taking account of the ways we turn to our own righteousness rather than God’s. Coming to terms with ways our lives have strayed from the heart of God.

Mark your life as a life that turns to him. Each and every day.

Here’s a practice: Take a moment every day to do a brief assessment of how you’ve gotten off track with God, followed paths leading away from him, ways you’ve disobeyed or have not sought him, and ways you have simply stopped walking toward him. Tell those to God and ask for his forgiveness. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than this: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”