There are so many scriptures that call God's people to repentance. The call is not even to the unbelieving, ungodly, worldly unsaved, but to God's own people. We sometimes get diverted seeing the sin in the world around us, that we forget the call to repentance is to us. It is one of the Father's ways of "delivering us from evil", delivering us from the plots of the enemy, delivering us from His own righteous judgment. It is a privilege and a mercy from a loving God.
"Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me." Psalm 51:10
From 2 Chron. 7:13-14, we read this familiar passage:
"When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."
A whole nation can be healed and forgiven from the act of repentance of God's own people. Awesome!
In Joel 2:12-14, again, God urges His people to repent:
"Now, therefore, says the LORD, "Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning." So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm. Who knows if He will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him- A grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD your God?"
The repentance of God's people causes God to relent from doing harm, and leave a blessing behind instead. Awesome!
Again from Psalm 51, God desires a repentant heart, a rent heart:
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart-
These, O God, You will not despise."
There is another example from Ex. 34:6-10:
"And the LORD passed before him (Moses) and proclaimed.
"The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation."
So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped. Then he said, "If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance."
As Moses made this repentance before the LORD, the LORD changed a nation:
"And He said: "Behold, I make a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the LORD. For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you..."
He will make a covenant.
He will do marvels that have never been done in any nation.
All the people around us will see the work of the LORD.
He will do an awesome thing with us.
One man's repentance would cause the LORD to do marvels and wonders and works - awesome things.
Awesome!
Our Father wants to do awesome things.
"Our God is Awesome!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz8BgLSC24E
Galatians 5:22-23 lists the Fruit of the Holy Spirit. love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
The word "fruit" here in the Greek is beautiful. It means the fruit of the trees, vines and fields, the fruit of one's loins, an effect, a result, an advantage, profit, praises presented to God as a thanks offering. The root meanings of the word, though, are interesting as well. The first root means to seize, claim for one's self eagerly. The second root meaning is to take for oneself, to prefer, to choose, to choose by vote, to elect for office.
Those root meanings tell me that this Fruit is something that I choose. I must make the choice to incorporate this fruit into my character. This fruit makes the difference between the liberty of the Spirit, and the bondage of the law of sin and death (Gal. 5:18). This fruit of the Spirit, by its nature, is a fulfillment of the purpose of the law which is to love thy neighbor as thyself (Gal.5:14).
The breakthrough and the victory that breaks bondage and transforms into liberty is contained in this spiritual fruit. We look sometimes desperately for the victory over the enemy that oppresses us. Sometimes that victory is not from the outside, but is birthed from the inside of each one of us. Maybe the victory finally comes when we choose to change ourselves. Perhaps this is the very victory we are looking for. Gal. 5:13 says that we have been called to liberty.
Jesus had a choice of victories, of liberties. Pilate said to Him "Don't you know that I have the power to crucify you, and to release you?", when Jesus stopped speaking with him. Right there is an opportunity for deliverance from the enemy, yet Jesus didn't take it. Jesus answered "You wouldn't have this power unless it had been given to you from above." I am paraphrasing this conversation from Jn. 19:10-11. Jesus did not take this opportunity for this particular victory or deliverance.
In another part of scripture, Mt. 26:47-54, when Judas and the armed crowd came from the chief priests and elders to arrest Jesus when He was with His disciples, one of the disciples tried to rescue Jesus with violence, cutting off the ear of one in the throng. Jesus refused this deliverance and victory by telling that disciple to put away his sword. Jesus said "...do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?" Jesus did not see escape in the form of the sword, or even angelic warriors.
Jesus did not take these opportunities of escape, these rather short-lived opportunities of deliverance. Both offers would have delivered Him from a very tight spot. That deliverance might have been temporary at best, and this was also not the victory the Father was looking for. While the enemy throng of this day might be evaded, there will be one to replace it the next day, and the day after that. No, the victory had to come from another place. Jesus chose that path-the path for which He had been purposed by His Father. That path would produce, not temporary relief, but everlasting victory and relief. It would produce liberty not just for Jesus, but for all. The victory came from a choice within Jesus. It was the choice of obedience (Phil. 2:8). Jesus asked the question in Jn. 18:11, "... the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?"
Sometimes, we think relief and breakthrough must come as quickly as possible, and we look for it in other people, in money solutions, wherever we can find it, because the place we are at is unbearable. We think our crisis will be solved with a certain amount of money, or the right attorney, the right idea, the right person, or even the point of the sword. But sometimes that relief and breakthrough must start from within us. This is where the battle begins and ends-flesh versus spirit. The victory must come from the place of the Fruit of the Spirit, against which there is no law. Perhaps the real victory, the real liberty, is in the place of love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. In this place, nothing the enemy does will profit.
Our Father has called us to liberty.
"Where the Spirit of the Lord is"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMWICrct5ek
"Break Every Chain"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pD2zIuiC2g
