Fast 40: Practicing the Ancient Spiritual Discipline of LentSample

Leonard Ravenhill once said, "America is not dying because of the strength of Humanism; it's dying because of the weakness of Evangelism. We take people TO the Cross, but we don't get them ON the Cross."

Think about that for a minute. When was the last time you heard a salvation call with repentance in it? We ask people to say "yes" to Jesus, but we don't ask them to say "no" to sin! We've made it easy to become a Christian, easy to join a church, easy to get saved; and our cheap grace has produced a cheap faith. Our half-baked gospel has created half-hearted Christians.

But Jesus didn't water down His message. It says in the Gospel of Mark that He began His ministry by saying, "Repent, and believe in the Gospel" (Mark 1:15). Repentance is when we say to God, "I'm wrong, and You're right." Repentance is turning from sin and turning to God. And it's not merely done once, but we continue to do it throughout our lives; we daily confess our sins to God and turn from our self-will to His holy will, which is the meaning of "taking up our cross." The truth is that without real repentance, there is no real remission; without self-denial, there is no spiritual growth.

As Ravenhill said elsewhere, "There are two kinds of people in the world—not rich and poor, not black and white, not educated and illiterate, just two: those who are dead IN sin, and those who are dead TO sin."