What Does It Mean To Repent

Some Christians believe repentance means simply to “turn around” and go in the opposite direction. But the Bible tells us repentance is much more than this.
 
The full, literal meaning of the word “repent” in the New Testament is “to feel remorse and self-reproach for one’s sins against God; to be contrite, sorry; to want to change direction.” 

The difference in meanings here rests on the word “want.” True repentance includes a desire to change!   

Moreover, simply being sorry does not constitute repentance.

Rather, true sorrow leads to repentance.

Paul states, “Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death”
(2 Corinthians 7:10).
 
Paul is speaking here of a sorrow that is without regrets—one that is genuine, that “sticks” in the life of the repentant person. 

This kind of godly sorrow naturally produces a repentance that includes a hatred for sin, a righteous fear of God and a desire to right all wrongs.
 
It should not surprise us, then, that Paul preached repentance to believers. 

He delivered a strong message of repentance to the Christians in Corinth. The Corinthian believers had been richly blessed by God, having sat under mighty teachers of the Word, yet their congregation remained rife with sin.
 
First Paul testifies to the Corinthians, “Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds” (2 Corinthians 12:12).

But then Paul tells them very directly: “I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would” (verse 20).
 
What was Paul’s fear? It was simply this: “Lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall [mourn] many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed” (verse 21).
 
This tenderhearted shepherd loved the compromising saints in Corinth. Yet he knew they had been well-taught that a lifestyle of gross sin was wrong.

He told them, “When I come to visit you, you’re going to see me hanging my head in grief. My eyes will flow with tears, and my voice will wail in sorrow.   

If I see you continuing to indulge in uncleanness, fornication and lust, I’ll be utterly broken, because the gospel has not done its work in your heart.

You haven’t yet repented of your sin. And I will call you loudly to repent!

~David Wilkerson~
 

HE Is My STRONG HABITATION

The Israelites in the wilderness were continually exposed to change. 

Whenever the pillar stayed its motion, the tents were pitched; but tomorrow, ere the morning sun had risen, the trumpet sounded, the ark was in motion, and the fiery, cloudy pillar was leading the way through the narrow defiles of the mountain, up the hill side, or along the arid waste of the wilderness.

They had scarcely time to rest a little before they heard the sound of “Away! this is not your rest; you must still be onward journeying towards Canaan!”

They were never long in one place. Even wells and palm trees could not detain them. 

Yet they had an abiding home in their God, his cloudy pillar was their roof-tree, and its flame by night their household fire.

They must go onward from place to place, continually changing, never having time to settle, and to say, “Now we are secure; in this place we shall dwell.” “Yet,” says Moses, “though we are always changing, Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place throughout all generations.”
 
The Christian knows no change with regard to God. 

He may be rich today and poor tomorrow; he may be sickly today and well to-morrow; he may be in happiness today, tomorrow he may be distressed—but there is no change with regard to his relationship to God. 

If he loved me yesterday, he loves me today. My unmoving mansion of rest is my blessed Lord.

Let prospects be blighted; let hopes be blasted; let joy be withered; let mildews destroy everything; I have lost nothing of what I have in God.

He is “my strong habitation whereunto I can continually resort.” I am a pilgrim in the world, but at home in my God.
 
In the earth I wander, but in God I dwell in a quiet habitation.

~Charles Spurgeon~

The PERILS Of Possessions

THERE is nothing more divisive than wealth. As families grow rich their members frequently become alienated. It is rarely, indeed, that love increases with the increase of riches.

Luxurious possessions appear to be a forcing-bed in which the seeds of sleeping vices waken into strength. For one thing, selfishness is often quickened with success.

Plenty, as well as penury, can “freeze the genial currents of the soul.”

And with selfishness comes a whole brood of mean and petty dispositions. Envy comes with it, and jealousy, and a morbid sensitiveness which readily leaps into strife.

So do our possessions multiply our temptations. So does the bright day “bring forth the adder.” So do we need extra defenses when “fortune smiles upon us.”

But our God can make us proof against “the fiery darts” of success. Abram remained unscathed in “the garish day.” The Lord delivered him from “the destruction that wasteth at noonday.”

His wealth increased, but it was not allowed to force itself between his soul and God. 

In the midst of all his prosperity, he dwelt in “the secret place of the Most High,” and he abode in “the shadow of the Almighty.”
 
~John Henry Jowett~

GOD Gives Strength

Gen 49:24  But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:)

That strength which GOD gives to his Josephs is real strength; it is not a boasted valour, a fiction, a thing of which men talk, but which ends in smoke; it is true—divine strength.
 
Why does Joseph stand against temptation? Because God gives him aid.

There is nought that we can do without the power of GOD. All true strength comes from “the Mighty GOD of Jacob.” 

Notice in what a blessedly familiar way GOD gives this strength to Joseph—“The arms of his hands were made strong by the Hands of the Mighty GOD of Jacob.”

Thus GOD is represented as putting his Hands on Joseph’s hands, placing his Arms on Joseph’s arms.
 
Like as a father teaches his children, so the LORD teaches them that fear Him. He puts His Arms upon them. Marvellous condescension! GOD Almighty, Eternal, Omnipotent, stoops
from His Throne and lays His Hand upon the child’s hand, stretching His Arm upon the arm of Joseph, that he may be made strong!

This strength was also covenant strength, for it is ascribed to The Mighty GOD of Jacob. 

Now, wherever you read of the GOD of Jacob in the Bible, you should remember the covenant with Jacob.

Christians love to think of GOD'S Covenant. All the power, all the grace, all the blessings, all the mercies, all the comforts, all the things we have, flow to us from the well-head, through the covenant.

If there were no covenant, then we should fail indeed; for all grace proceeds from it, as light and heat from the sun.

No angels ascend or descend, save upon that ladder which Jacob saw, at the top of which stood a covenant GOD. 

Christian, it may be that the archers have sorely grieved you,
and shot at you, and wounded you, but still your bow abides in strength; be sure, then, to ascribe all the glory to Jacob’s GOD.
 
~Charles Spurgeon~

Satan Is Not Put To Flight By Our Courteous Request!

Evil never surrenders its grasp without a tremendous fight. 

We never arrive at any spiritual inheritance through the enjoyment of a picnic but always through the fierce conflicts of the battlefield.
 
And it is the same in the deep recesses of the soul. 

Every human capacity that wins its spiritual freedom does so at the cost of blood.

Satan is not put to flight by our courteous request.
 
He completely blocks our way, and our progress must be recorded in blood and tears. We need to remember this, or else we will be held responsible for the arrogance of misinterpretation.

When we are born again, it is not into a soft and protected nursery but into the open countryside, where we actually draw our strength from the distress of the storm.

We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). 

~John Henry Jowett~

Be Content Or Complain. It's A Choice!

I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content. Philippians 4:11

These words show us that contentment is not a natural propensity of man. “Ill weeds grow apace.”

Covetousness, discontent, and murmuring are as natural to man as thorns are to the soil.

We need not sow thistles and brambles; they come up naturally enough, because they are indigenous to earth: and so, we need not teach men to complain; they complain fast enough without any education.

But the precious things of the earth must be cultivated. If we would have wheat, we must plough and sow; if we want flowers, there must be the garden, and all the gardener’s care.

Now, contentment is one of the flowers of heaven, and if we would have it, it must be cultivated; it will not grow in us by nature; it is the new nature alone that can produce it, and even then we must be specially careful and watchful that we maintain and cultivate the grace which God has sown in us.

Paul says, “I have learned to be content;” as much as to say, he did not know how at one time. 

It cost him some pains to attain to the mystery of that great truth. No doubt he sometimes thought he had learned, and then broke down. 

And when at last he had attained unto it, and could say, “I have
learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content,” he was an old, grey-headed man, upon the borders of the grave—a poor prisoner shut up in Nero’s dungeon at Rome. 

We might well be willing to endure Paul’s infirmities, and share the cold dungeon with him, if we too might by any means attain unto his good degree.

Do not indulge the notion that you can be contented without learning, or learn without discipline.

It is not a power that may be exercised naturally, but a science to be acquired gradually. We know this from experience.
 
Brother, hush that murmur, natural though it be, and continue a diligent pupil in the College of Content.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Rejoice In The LORD

It is a good thing to “rejoice in the Lord.”Perhaps you have tried it but seemed to fail at first. Don’t give it a second thought, and forge ahead.

Even when you cannot feel any joy, there is no spring in your step, nor any comfort or encouragement in your life, continue
to rejoice and “consider it pure joy” (James 1:2).

Whenever you face trials of many kinds (James 1:2), regard it as joy, delight in it, and God will reward your faith.

Do you believe that your heavenly Father will let you carry the banner of His victory and joy to the very front of the battle, only to calmly withdraw to see you captured or beaten back by the enemy? NEVER! 

His Holy Spirit will sustain you in your bold advance and fill your heart with gladness and praise.You will find that your heart is exhilarated and refreshed by the fullness within.
 
Lord, teach me to rejoice in You to “be joyful always”
(1 Thess. 5:16). 

~Selected~
 
The weakest saint may satan rout, Who meets him with a praiseful shout.
 
Be filled with the Spirit. . . . Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord. Ephesians 5:18–19
 
In these verses, the apostle Paul urges us to use singing as
inspiration in our spiritual life. He warns his readers to seek
motivation not through the body but through the spirit, not by stimulating the flesh but by exalting the soul.
 
Sometimes a light surprises The Christian while he sings.
Let us sing even when we do not feel like it, for in this way we give wings to heavy feet and turn weariness into strength.
 
~John Henry Jowett~

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 
Acts 16:25
 
O Paul, what a wonderful example you are to us! You gloried
in the fact that you “bear on [your] body the marks of Jesus”
(Gal. 6:17).You bore the marks from nearly being stoned to death, from three times being “beaten with rods”(2 Cor. 11:25),
from receiving 195 lashes from the Jews,and from being bloodily
beaten in the Philippian jail. Surely the grace that enabled
you to sing praises while enduring such suffering is sufficient
for us. 

~J. Roach~
 
Oh, let us rejoice in the Lord, evermore, When darts of the Tempter are flying, For satan still dreads, as he oft did before,
Our singing much more than our crying.

Knowing How To Abound

Philippines 4:12  I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 

There are many who know "how to be abased" who have not learned "how to abound."

When they are set upon the top of a pinnacle their heads grow dizzy, and they are ready to fall.

The Christian far oftener disgraces his profession in prosperity than in adversity. 

It is a dangerous thing to be prosperous. The crucible of adversity is a less severe trial to the Christian than the fining-pot of prosperity. 

Oh, what leanness of soul and neglect of spiritual things have been brought on through the very mercies and bounties of God!  

Yet this is not a matter of necessity, for the apostle tells us that he knew how to abound. When he had much he knew how to use it. Abundant grace enabled him to bear abundant prosperity. 

When he had a full sail he was loaded with much ballast, and so floated safely.

It needs more than human skill to carry the brimming cup of mortal joy with a steady hand, yet Paul had learned that skill, for he declares, "In all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry."

It is a divine lesson to know how to be full, for the Israelites were full once, but while the flesh was yet in their mouth, the wrath of God came upon them.

Many have asked for mercies that they might satisfy their own hearts' lust. Fulness of bread has often made fulness of blood, and that has brought on wantonness of spirit.

When we have much of God's providential mercies, it often happens that we have but little of God's grace, and little gratitude for the bounties we have received.

We are full and we forget God: satisfied with earth, we are content to do without heaven.

Rest assured it is harder to know how to be full than it is to know how to be hungry—so desperate is the tendency of human nature to pride and forgetfulness of God.

Take care that you ask in your prayers that God would teach you "how to be full."

Let not the gifts Thy love bestows Estrange our hearts from Thee.

~Charles Spurgeon~

We Pray But He Answers In His Way

Often it is simply the answers to our prayers that cause many of the difficulties in the Christian life. We pray for patience, and our Father sends demanding people our way who test us to the limit, because . . . suffering produces perseverance (Rom. 5:3).

We pray for a submissive spirit, and God sends suffering again, for we learn to be obedient in the same way Christ “learned obedience from what he suffered” (Heb. 5:8).
 
We pray to be unselfish, and God gives us opportunities to
sacrifice by placing other people’s needs first and by laying down our lives for other believers.

We pray for strength and humility, and “a messenger of Satan” 
(2 Cor. 12:7) comes to torment us until we lie on the ground pleading for it to be withdrawn.
 
We pray to the Lord, as His apostles did, saying, “Increase our
faith!” (Luke 17:5).Then our money seems to take wings and fly away; our children become critically ill; an employee becomes careless, slow, and wasteful; or some other new trial comes upon us, requiring more faith than we have ever before experienced.
 
We pray for a Christlike life that exhibits the humility of a lamb.Then we are asked to perform some lowly task, or we are unjustly accused and given no opportunity to explain, for “he
was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and . . . did not open his
mouth” (Isa. 53:7). 

We pray for gentleness and quickly face a storm of temptation
to be harsh and irritable. 

We pray for quietness, and suddenly every nerve is stressed to its limit with tremendous tension so that we may learn that when He sends His peace, no one can disturb it.
 
We pray for love for others, and God sends unique suffering by sending people our way who are difficult to love and who say things that get on our nerves and tear at our heart.
 
He does this because “love is patient, love is kind. . . . It is not
rude, . . . it is not easily angered. . . . It always protects, always
trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
(1 Cor. 13:4–5, 7–8).
 
Yes, we pray to be like Jesus, and God’s answer is “I have tested you in the furnace of affliction” (Isa. 48:10); “Will your courage endure or your hands be strong?” (Ezek. 22:14); “Can you drink the cup?” (Matt. 20:22). 

The way to peace and victory is to accept every circumstance and every trial as being straight from the hand of our loving Father; to live “with him in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 2:6), above the clouds, in the very presence of His throne; and to look down from glory on our circumstances as being lovingly and divinely appointed.

~Selected~
 
I prayed for strength, and then I lost awhile All sense of nearness, human and divine; The love I leaned on failed and pierced my heart, The hands I clung to loosed themselves from mine; But while I swayed, weak, trembling, and alone, The everlasting arms upheld my own.
 
I prayed for light; the sun went down in clouds, The moon was darkened by a misty doubt, The stars of heaven were dimmed by earthly fears, And all my little candle flames burned out; But while I sat in shadow, wrapped in night, The face of Christ made all the darkness bright.

I prayed for peace, and dreamed of restful ease, A slumber free from pain, a hushed repose; Above my head the skies were black with storm, And fiercer grew the onslaught of my foes; But while the battle raged, and wild winds blew, I heard His voice and perfect peace I knew.
 
I thank You, Lord,You were too wise to heed My feeble prayers, and answer as I sought.

Since these rich gifts Your bounty has bestowed Have brought me more than all I asked or thought.

Giver of good, so answer each request With Your own giving, better than my best.
 
~Annie Johnson Flint~

"This Is My Doing"

                                                                              

My child, I have a message for you today. Let me whisper it
in your ear so any storm clouds that may arise will shine with
glory, and the rough places you may have to walk will be made
smooth. It is only four words, but let them sink into your inner
being, and use them as a pillow to rest your weary head. “This
is my doing.”

Have you ever realized that whatever concerns you concerns Me too? “For whoever touches you touches the apple of my eye”  (Zech.2:8).

You are precious and honored in my sight (Isa. 43:4).Therefore it is My special delight to teach you.

I want you to learn when temptations attack you, and the enemy comes in “like a pent-up flood” (Isa. 59:19), that “this is my doing” and that your weakness needs My strength, and your safety lies in letting Me fight for you.

Are you in difficult circumstances, surrounded by people who do not understand you, never ask your opinion, and always push you aside? “This is my doing.” I am the God of circumstances.

You did not come to this place by accident—you are exactly where I meant for you to be.

Have you not asked Me to make you humble? Then see that
I have placed you in the perfect school where this lesson is
taught.

Your circumstances and the people around you are only being used to accomplish My will.

Are you having problems with money, finding it hard to make ends meet? “This is my doing,” for I am the One who keeps your finances, and I want you to learn to depend upon Me. My supply is limitless and I “will meet all your needs” Phil. 4:19. 

I want you to prove My promises so no one may say,“You did not trust in the Lord your God” (Deut. 1:32).

Are you experiencing a time of sorrow? “This is my doing.” I
am “a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering” (Isa. 53:3). I
have allowed your earthly comforters to fail you, so that by turning to Me you may receive “eternal encouragement and good hope” (2 Thess. 2:16).

Have you longed to do some great work for Me but instead have been set aside on a bed of sickness and pain? “This is my doing.” You were so busy I could not get your attention, and I wanted to teach you some of My deepest truths.

They also serve who only stand and wait. In fact, some of My
greatest workers are those physically unable to serve, but who have learned to wield the powerful weapon of prayer.

Today I place a cup of holy oil in your hands. Use it freely, My child. Anoint with it every new circumstance, every word that hurts you, every interruption that makes you impatient,and every weakness you have.

The pain will leave as you learn to see Me in all things.

~Laura A. Barter Snow~

This is from Me, the Savior said, As bending low He kissed my brow, “For One who loves you thus has led.

Just rest in Me, be patient now, Your Father knows you have need of this, Though, why perhaps you cannot see—

Grieve not for things you’ve seemed to miss. The thing I send is best for thee.”

Then, looking through my tears, I plead, “Dear Lord, forgive, I did not know, It will not be hard since You do tread, Each path before me here below.”

And for my good this thing must be, His grace sufficient for each test.

So still I’ll sing,“Whatever be God’s way for me is always best.”