Ron
I'm looking for fruitful repentance. The only effective change is in the presence of the Lord. The only effective change is when you have a meeting with the Lord.
Dale
This has got to be working in my heart, I'm tired of being less than what God wants me to be.
Ron
My approach that I've ever found effective is the Word, and the Lord appearing in His Word. When He appears, I'll be like Him.
Dale
It has to come out of a meeting with God, because He's the only one who can make this work.
Debbie
I need help with this, I do not know how to do it myself. I do not know how to turn from everything that I've grown up with that I've been conditioned by. Lord help me, Holy Spirit, show me and help me. Help me to do it so that it becomes a part of my being, it becomes fruitful. Because it becomes part of my being, and part of everything that I do.
Ed
You have to have the attitude to go after it, to get this deep repentance. Because there's another depth that you have to go through, there's another experience that you need to come forth with. I want the next depth.
Debbie
Well, that's where the hunger comes in. If you have a desire to know the Lord, if you really want to know the Lord, and you really want to be a ministry, for Him, be a channel for Him, then you have to be willing to open up to who you been, and who He wants you to be. But the Holy Spirit has to reveal that to you. As you hunger after Him, as you draw nigh to Him, He will reveal those things to you. And if you walk in them, and you repent of them and turn from them, open up to Him in a new place, then that's where you're gonna find the fruit. As you get into His presence and draw nigh to Him, He will draw nigh to you. You know, I'm thinking about Psalm 51. And David, David's cry, "create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a right spirit within me." Create it in me; I don't have it, Create it in me. I want to be pure before You.
Ed
Psalm 51 was when David had fathered a child with Bathsheba. For months, he had been there finally realized, I don't have the joy of the Lord. With the sin comes a separation. And we don't want that separation. When Nathan finally came to him, I'll bet she was in she was in her ninth month. And that's when he started seeking God again. We can go a long time, and then all of a sudden, God puts His finger on something. And when He puts His finger on something, okay, that's when we have to move. We're always going to be in a in a in a state of repentance in our spirits. But there's going to be times when God finally says, Okay, this is long enough, I see this in you. Okay, now you go after it. Then the Holy Spirit comes, and all of a sudden, here comes the joy. Because you got rid of that one little thing. Here comes the understanding. Because you're you were in a dark place, and you didn't even recognize it. And that's what repentance does. Repentance, stops the separation. I want to get closer to you, God, where do you start? You start with repentance. It's getting you so that you can get closer to God by getting rid of something that you didn't even know you had.
Ron
You cannot produce repentance in your self. God has to work in your spirit, in your circumstances in your mind, in your being, You may not understand what He's leading you through. So He walks you through this thing and He brings you to this place. And when He brings you to this place, all of a sudden, you're at the fulcrum and you have a decision. Because He always gives you a decision. He can't cross your will. But He does bring you to the place where you can make a decision. But that decision at that point means a lot because He brought you by the Spirit to that place; that is fruitful repentance. Here David, David screws up big time, but he doesn't even recognize it. He does not recognize that he's going on with his life like everything's hunky dory. Nathan comes in and speaks a word from God. Now there's the key. It wasn't Nathan coming in saying, bad boy, it wasn't a human thing. He brought a word from God that imparted to David. This is not self help. This is all God, all God. And however it comes through a friend through the Word, however, this comes, this change, we're talking about, this fruit for repentance. We're never going to stand before the Lord and have anything within us that can say, "I humbled myself before you". God imparts that humility, God imparts that willingness, it's all Him. It's not us, we may have the choice, but even if we make the wrong choice, He just takes you back around the mountain again, until you make the right choice.
Dale
When He brings you to that place, if you don't act upon it, nothing's gonna happen. So when you react, and the first thing you react with, is you humble yourself before the Lord. That is an action that you take. What do you do when you humble yourself? You impose upon yourself a way of thinking, or you impose upon yourself something from God that turns into humility. But there are certain steps that you take that He honors. There are steps you take ordered of the Lord, directed by the Lord, it happens. Is there any greater joy than turning to the presence of the Lord? Turning to Him. There is a joy that comes from the Father throughout the scriptures. The reward that we get from being in His presence, doing His will on the earth is joy.
