Dale
Repentance is something that as we grow in the Lord, God goes deeper. The depth that He goes to, is the desire of His heart, that you are perfected in His sight.
Debbie:
You need to be pure in your way of relating, so that He can use you as a channel. Otherwise, the channel becomes like a river with rocks in it, and the rocks tend, stop the flow. If you don't get rid of them, eliminate them, they're going to hinder the flow. But if you get rid of them before the Lord, then the Lord can use you as a channel for His word to flow through you.
Dale:
What you're talking about Deb, is the things that mature us. As God matures us, He gives us the opportunity to reach the depth of our spirit. And you can't just introduce someone to the Lord, and get into the depth of things. So what you do is you lead them. We're led by the Holy Spirit. And what is it Colossians, - I'll paraphrase it, - God's not going to put you through something that you can't handle. Many times if we're if we're listening, God will speak a Word to us. We'll receive that Word with thanksgiving, and all kinds of great feelings and wonderful, beautiful Word. And then God will come and test it. And that testing is you repenting. Am I going to turn to what the Lord wants? And as we do that, God in His grace is, like I said, not gonna give us more than we can handle. So the next time around in that situation, God's gonna give you some more, He's just gonna go deeper. Well, Jesus is my Savior. Well, that's a good start. Is Jesus your Lord? Have you come to the place where you've taken up your cross and followed Him? That's a form of laying down your life. John 14, through 17, we get a fantastic picture of what Christ did for us that we could walk that way. And those are the steps that, that you turn to.
Debbie:
Teach me Your ways. Teach me how to repent. Teach me how to turn from the things that are hindering me and teach me how to be effective. Enable me to walk and to be used of You. Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, see if there'll be any wicked way in me and cleanse me from every, every evil thing. Let me walk in Your presence. If you're just coming into a walk with God, you can do that to a point. You open up and say, Here I am, Lord. I give myself to You, show me how I'm to walk.
Ed
It's this deep repentance that exposes us to God. That's going to be the thing that's going to change us, is the exposure to God. As you expose yourself, then you all of a sudden you start taking on God's attributes. As you reach into God, as you repent before God, He'll show you; walk this way. The world has got a nice little way of saying, well, this is right, this is right; and it's not. If you're not reaching into God, you're not going to be following after Him, and you're gonna think that all of these things that I'm doing right now are right, and they're not. Christ loves you. He loves all of us. But He cannot love your sin. It's up to us to repent before Him of that sin as He reveals it to you.
Dale
There was a key and the key is, when you have turned away in that deep, deep, deep turning away, you won't remember what you did. And that's a key. Your flesh is gone. The only thing that is left is the Christ in you the hope of glory. By His grace, by His mercy, and by Him sticking with you, till it's finished. And I think that's a drive of a mature Christian in our approach to repentance, our approach to turning away. You shall be pure as your heavenly Father is pure. Weren't you created in His image?
Ron
In repentance, there's a state of heart, is a state of being that you can come to every day, by a decision that you make. And that is, Lord, I open my heart, and I keep my heart open. And when things are presented to me, I don't defend them. I keep an open heart and open spirit to You. I'm not condemned. I'm not going to grovel, or be condemned . But I'm going to keep an open heart for your Holy Spirit to lead me through the process. If you keep an attitude every day of, Lord, I'm just open to your Holy Spirit today to lead me through what You want to put me through, what you want me to walk through. People look at it repentance, and it's got to be this sorrow, sad feeling and negative thing. I don't think repentance is any of that. I actually think repentance is an open spirit, before the Lord every day. And this just that simple. I keep an open spirit to You, an open heart to You through the things that You walk me through. That's my repentance. And honestly, a lot of that can come with great joy. If you refuse to bite on the hook of condemnation, feeling bad and all that, then you find out that these things we're talking about are things that you walk through by faith. You can't produce a thing. You cannot produce repentance. It's an open spirit, before the Lord, a worship of spirit before the Lord. As we walk further into this daily lifestyle, I think our repentance is going to be so full of joy. It's not going to be what we thought. It's not going to be what we've been taught subconsciously through generations of penance, and generations of condemnation and generations of preachers beating on the altar saying, repent, repent, or you'll go to hell repent. This stuff's been ingrained through generations and generations through our parents, our grandparents, their grandparents. I think one of our greatest examples of repentance is a little two year old or three year old child. They're not beat down. They just are open, to be loved, and teachable. And that is a great definition of repentance. A childlike spirit, a child's heart. That's why God loves the little children.
