"Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is near."
Matthew
4:17
Repentance is an admission
and an
adjustment. When we
repent we admit we
have personally behaved in a way that offends God and the
reality He has
prepared for us. We
admit we have been
headed away from God and away from reality. When we repent we
also make an
adjustment in direction. We turn toward God and the reality He
created for us
and away from the lies about God and reality that we have been
living.
When Jesus called His
first followers He
simply said "Follow Me."
Whether they understood completely or not the disciples
were repenting
as they followed Jesus. It is impossible to avoid repentance
while following
and adapting to Jesus. It
is impossible
to avoid repentance while following Jesus because Jesus is the
reality we have
offended with our wrong thinking and actions.
To become a disciple is to
admit and adapt
to what is true in Jesus. Jesus
is not a
new idea. Jesus is the reality of what has always been and
will always be best
for us. Jesus is what is supernaturally natural in the
universe. All true
repentance is made possible because Jesus came near to walk
among us so we
could walk back toward God together.
The longer we walk with
Jesus the more we
perceive how much admitting and adapting lies ahead for us. As
maturing disciples we
settle in for the long walk back
to what is supernaturally natural with Jesus.
Being a disciple of Jesus is not boring!
Every day something is shown to us in Jesus and
adapting to what we now
see keeps us engaged and growing.
There is no going back
once we truly see
where Jesus is taking us. In
Jesus it is
all good up ahead. There is no good reason to go back.
Bud McCord
Abide International
