Luke 5: 32 I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.
Question to consider: Have you truly repented of your sins? What is your conversion story? Are you a true Christian or a false convert?
As you read this, I wonder how many of you out there consider yourself a Christian? I am thinking of how many of you right now are recalling that time and place when you: accepted Christ, believed in Christ, invited Jesus into your heart, prayed the sinners prayer, believed and received, made a decision for Christ, filled that God shaped hole in your heart. Do any of those sound familiar to you?
How many of you though have clearly and truly REPENTED of your sin and placed your trust in Jesus solely for the forgiveness of your sins? Because it was the blood shed by Jesus on the cross that covers your sin and it was His resurrection that defeated death. Do you know that the word “repent” is found in the New Testament alone around 52 times. That is a lot. And to me that is something we dare not need to miss.
Repentance is not only confessing our sins to God or just admitting to God we are sinners, but it is also turning from our sins- saying we are done with them. We don’t want to have anything to do with them again. We want to live a life pleasing God, because we know our sin, even the tiniest white lie, is an abomination to God and it offends Him greatly. It is a complete change in our mind and heart on how filthy and sinful we truly are before a Holy God and we don’t want to have nothing to do with our sinfulness any longer.
Let me give you a great analogy that I once heard from Ray Comfort, a wonderful evangelist and preacher, widely known for his ministry of The Way Of The Master. In his early days, Ray was a surfer. While out on their surfboards waiting for waves, there were always some surfers that were further out in the ocean than others. These surfers could see the tiny ripples of waves coming closer and closer and growing larger and larger. They would call out, “BIG SET COMING.” And as those waves would come crashing towards shore, the surfers many times would find themselves in unenviable positions of huge waves crashing down on them and not being ready to surf. They had a choice to make. They could try to hold on their board with the wave crashing upon them and risk being taken under and literally be thrown into their board and risk serious injury and even death. Or, they could throw their board as far as they could away from them and dive into the depth of the wave for safety.
Ray continues in the fact that for years the prophets and the writers of the New Testament have been warning us, “BIG SET COMING.” God’s wrath is coming closer and closer and we have a choice. We can turn from our sin and place our trust in Christ to save us. In other words, we can throw away our boards and dive deep into what Christ has done for us, OR we will be left with our sin and face the ultimate wrath in which there will be no escape, no turning back, and no hope. Because when we die in our sins (never repenting from them and never placing our trust in Christ) and stand before God, our punishment will be eternal separation from God in the Lake of Fire.
Now this is not to make you doubt your salvation, but to make sure it is real. Have you truly repented of your sin? I’m not asking for one of those phrases above. I am asking has there been a time in your life where you saw how filthy and sinful you were before a Holy God and how you have broken every one of His Ten Commandments (yes even the murder commandment, because Jesus tells us that if we are angry without cause we are in danger of judgment). Have you completely surrendered and cried out, “God I am done with me. I have sinned against You, a Holy and righteous God.”
That’s how God will judge us, by righteousness not by how good we are. Are you truly sorry for how you have offended God? Have you cried out to Him to save you? Have you ever pictured and thought about your sin and all the horrible things you’ve done and then pictured Jesus taking the beatings and the whippings and hanging on the cross and bleeding for those things.
That is salvation: surrendering all that you are, all that you have, you are done with you, you repent (confess and forsake your sin) and ask God to save you by placing your complete trust in Jesus. That is the Christian message. Have you done that? Have you completely surrendered your life to the One who shed His blood on the cross for you? When we do that, God then sees the righteousness of Jesus instead of our filthiness. We get that credit of righteousness in our “account”, so to speak.
Read Psalm 51 when David cries out to the Lord asking to be forgiven. The Bible tells us that today is the day for salvation. Maybe you are unsure. Make it right. Make it right today. Think about all your sin and see the Savior on the cross and ask Him for His mercy and He will save you because He is going to get all the credit and glory for doing so.
Make sure you read your Bible each and every day and obey what it says and, if you are not in one already, find a Bible believing and Bible teaching church.
