Saturday, 17 December 2011

How Do I Repent For My Sins

It is indeed a wonder to behold the patience that keeps God back from destroying the earth this very moment as He did Sodom in the days of Lot. In Luke chapter 13, Jesus tells a story illustrating the longsuffering of God as well as the certainty of judgment upon unrepentant sinners. A fig tree had remained barren despite years of careful tending and painstaking supervision. In utter exasperation, the owner remarked to his gardener, "Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why encumbereth it the ground?" The latter counselled to patience; he pleaded for the benefit of another chance after which, if the tree remained fruitless, it would be cut down (Luke 13 v 6-9).

You may be that fig tree. The men of Sodom continued in their sins right up to the last moment when judgement fell upon them. In a similar fashion, the cup of iniquity of the present world is full and running over. The winepress of the fierceness and wrath of the Almighty God is bursting at the seams. The moral depravity of man is stretching the limits of the patience of the thrice-holy God, and the consequences will be both severe and dreadful! (Hebrews 10 v 31).

God is no respecter of persons; He will judge sin wherever and in whomsoever it is found. Not just one nation but any, and not just any nation but any city, family or individual that persists in sin is liable to earthly consequences and eternal punishment unless there is prompt and total repentance (Read Jeremiah 18 v 9, 10; Luke 13 v 1-5).

A big question is begging for an answer here. Why do people continue to sin with impunity, without a care in the world for what God thinks? Do they not know there is God or that He demands holiness from his creatures? Some do, but they think they are wise and can hide their deeds from His eyes. They are wrong. (Jeremiah 23 v 24). The Scriptures are replete with too many declarations of God's omniscience than anyone can ignore (see Psalms 94 v 4-9; Proverbs 15 v 3; Isaiah 29 v 15 etc). Others know there is God but they suppose He has His hands full administering the universe than to care about what they do. To all such deluded souls, one may reply in the words of the Psalmist ( Read Psalm 94 v 8,9). God gave man the wisdom to invent the computer, a little machine that can process, store and retrieve volumes of information at the same time and in the twinkling of an eye. And shall He not be able to capture your deeds? Will He not replay them to you at the great judgement seat of Christ? (2 Corinthians 5 v 10).

A third group comprises people who have heard the voice of God, who once trembled when He thundered in their souls; but over the years have gradually lost their tenderness and, with it, their fear of God. Familiarity has bred contempt. Sin has lost its sinfulness. They rationalise their every act of sin with Lot's plea, "Is it not a little one?" (Genesis 19 v 20). The damnable error of 'once saved, forever saved' has beclouded their minds. They live daily as if nothing is at stake, as if they will lose nothing by careless living. And yet... and yet, heaven, even eternity itself, is at stake if you go back into sin and die without repentance! The Lord will have us "Remember Lot's wife". She left the fires of Sodom but failed to reach the relative safety of Zoar. "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof" (Ecclesiastes 7 v 8). How to repent from those sins, you must be wise pray and strive to steer the ship of your spiritual life away from the rocks of secret errors, presumptuous sins and, eventually, the great transgression that would dash it into pieces. Apostle Paul was not a man given to needless fears yet even he trembled at the possibility of becoming a castaway (Corinthians 9 v 25-27). There is no enternal security for the sinning church member.

© CHRISTIAN WOMEN MIRROR Magazine.

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