Repentance and Restoration!!

Repentance says, I change my mind about who Jesus is.  Repentance is a return to the Lord, a change of thinking, and a change of direction, which results in a change of heart.  If you have been resisting the Spirit’s tug at your heart, change your mind about who you think Jesus Christ is, and give your life to Him.  If you have been grieving the Spirit, change direction and deal directly with the sin you know He is speaking to you about.  If you have been quenching the Spirit, change direction and pursue Him instead of being apathetic toward Him.  

Then we can experience times of refreshing in our lives.  Remember David when he finally dealt with the issue of his sin.  Nathan the prophet came to David and said, David we have a problem.  Within your kingdom, there’s a rich man who owns many sheep.  Wanting to give a visitor a leg of lamb, he went to his next door neighbor’s house.  Now, his neighbor was so poor that he had only one little lamb that he treated as a pet.  But the rich man took the poor man’s single lamb and fed it to his guest.  What? thundered David.  The rich man ripped off the poor man?  He shall surely die! Nathan then said, David you are the man. It’s you.  The story relates to your sin–you will always know your  in sin when your harsh with other people.  Stealing a lamb was not a capitol offense, yet David was treating it that way.   Sin– its a funny thing, it allows us to find fault with others making us feel a little better about our own sin.  You might say didn’t David sin against Bathsheba and Uriah but the psalmist rightly declared that he had sinned against God.  Sin is always only against God because no matter what we do to someone else, and no matter what someone else does to us, its less than what we or they deserve.  Were all sinners and we all deserve to be wiped out, destroyed, and consumed.  But God? He is perfect and holy, loving and gracious, patient and kind.  He is the only One unfairly hurt by the consequences of our sin.

David went on to say “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.  Then I will teach sinners your ways and sinners will return to you.”  I have learned my lesson Father–Restore me.