Repentance: Really!

 You’ve got to really repent. Really repenting means waging war on your heart by the power of the Spirit. You lay the axe to the root of the tree and cut down that bad tree. Yes you’ll still have besetting sins and will never be without them in this life, but don’t willfully consent with them, and if you do repent as soon as possible. They’ll blind you, deceive you, and whatever they are send you to hell if you don’t repent irrespective of your profession of faith. Because real faith drives you to oppose sin. The faster you can get away from that sin and safe back in the presence of God, the better. 

Make war with sin, and do it principally in the heart. When you do that it makes the whole Christian life so much easier. I don’t have to worry about getting in trouble because all day I’m thinking about how I’m going to spend time with the Lord. I don’t worry about money or losing weight because I’m thinking about his law and his grace and mercy, so I’m not wasting money on garbage or stuffing my face with food. Willfully refusing sin and squashing it when it shows up leaves room for the Spirit to be teaching me and helping me think about good things. 

And all the sudden so much of scripture makes sense also. Somehow I had no idea what it meant to be pure in heart. The body of sin can’t even comprehend the words.

This isn’t a matter of willpower alone. The will must be fully engaged, of course, but you must fight sin with the help of the Spirit of God. The flesh can’t oppose the flesh. It doesn’t even understand the nature of the fight. Why would it fight and kill itself? But we have the Spirit to fight it, and you can ask Him for help whenever you need it. He’s made your mind and body his temple if you have faith. So cleanse his temple! 

Don’t appropriate your sin as an “infirmity” if you aren’t opposing it. 

Rom 10:9-12

9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.

13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?

15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

This passage can’t be understood apart from being a faith that has life in it. And a living faith always leads you to repent.

For my part, I understood enough to know repentance was important, but didn’t understand it to be required. And with it not being required it meant I could pick and choose what sin I held back and just call it “infirmity”. But Heb 10:26 shook me from that and made me realize I had drifted into a lot of “infirmity”. All it takes is a little sin held back and excused apart from the cross of Christ, apart from consideration of the Lamb of God suffering for it, and it grows like mold, deceiving you all along into thinking its supposed to be there: “Don’t mind me. I’m just part of the design of the house.” I needed to see it rightly, as an offense against God that Christ was crucified for. I didn’t understand the full extent of what Christ was calling me to and calling me out of, even though it was plain in the first words I heard as a regenerate man long ago: “blessed are the pure in heart”.

I didn’t understand what it meant. For fifteen years it puzzled me. I just knew I needed to hear this man even if I didn’t understand him. But it’s so obvious: don’t sin willfully in your heart. And moreover, it reveals that my heart is a complete traitor and I have to subdue it constantly. And it’s impossible without the Spirit! That’s proof positive that I’m not alone.

The tragedy of this is that I had him with me the whole time. I witnessed the power in the early years of my Christian life but then I left it off. I let hypercalvinist ideas work into me and convinced myself that being too perfect would lead me into justification by works. Nonsense. Lies of Satan. You can’t be too holy. More holiness can only make you happier and more dependent on the finished work of Christ and power of His Spirit. Because it makes you see yourself and your sin rightly and it shocks you when the veil is lifted and you see the danger you were in and the filthiness and offense of it to God when you were going on at peace with unrepentant sin. That can only bring to the cross as a blind beggar saying, “Take this from me and open my eyes. Keep me from the great transgression I was so near to.”

Increasing holiness will give you sight of enough besetting sin to keep you busy and the tears flowing at the foot of the cross without needing to add to the mix willful and presumptuous sin against his means of grace that you tolerate and engage with. That’s deadly. It’s blinding and invites the punishments for sin in this life: reprobate sense, strong delusions, vile affections, etc. and can only lead to eternal damnation if persisted in and without a marvelous act of grace. Because the promises are to such as are penitent. For God to accept you and your pretended faith without your hearty repentance would make His Son a liar when he said: 

Luk 13:3

3 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

And He will much sooner damn a hypocrite than allow the honor of Christ to be impugned, as all children of God would agree.

Receive these warnings with urgency. This could be your last lifeline before sin covers your eyes again to the last day.

To have holiness from the heart is to have his glorious wedding garments that he provides to his sons and daughters. It’s how you can be sure that you’re his. Far from being confidence in your own works, it’s a living testimony that he’s saved you since it demonstrates that he’s cleansed the heart of such a polluted sinner and given you grace to continually dwell in his presence.

Mat 22:11-14

11 And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:

12 And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.

13 Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

14 For many are called, but few are chosen.