Repentance

https://odb.org/2024/08/23/a-repentant-heart

When I was a younger believer, I was taught a very important lesson that perhaps nowadays we place less emphasis on. The lesson is that even as we confess our sins and seek forgiveness before God and accept by faith Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, we need to also repent from our sins. Repentance means turning away and starting anew, and it is crucial to avoid a cycle of us committing a habitual sin, confess, seek forgiveness, and then do it again and again. We will not grow spiritually if our battle with sin ends up that way, endless.

The reason for the need for repentance can be seen in Jeremiah 4:3-4 NKJV:

3 For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: “Break up your fallow ground,
And do not sow among thorns.
4 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord,
And take away the foreskins of your hearts,
You men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,
Lest My fury come forth like fire,
And burn so that no one can quench it,
Because of the evil of your doings.”

Fallow means unplowed, and from an agricultural perspective, no farmer will sow seeds before ploughing the ground to loosen the earth. Neither will a farmer sow seeds before clearing the thorns and the weeds as they will compete for the richness of the soil and may eventually overwhelm the crops. Circumcision for the Israelites was part of God’s covenant with Abraham as a sign for the people to be set aside for Him.

Figuratively, Jeremiah 4:3-4 means that God is not able to work with us if our hearts are not conditioned and not set apart for Him. If we still have sin and are unrepentant, we are like unplowed and thorny ground and have not been set apart for Him. How can we then grow in the faith and become spiritually matured?

I think we need to be reminded of the importance of repentance in our relationship with the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Sin will be that chasm that will separate us again from the glory and presence of God. Confess our sins before Him, seek His forgiveness, and repent. He will surely forgive and accept us back into His fold and the shadow of His wings.