Tag: Repent

Repent!

On By rcannata7In God's Word, Walk of obedienceLeave a comment

“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”” (Acts 17:30–31, ESV)

I write this blog on the first day of Passover 2020. There is so much going on in the world and still fear has its grips on so many. The Plagues of the bible where to bring humility to the people of Egypt and bring about the redemption of God’s people. The unfortunate thing for the people in Egypt is that they continued to refuse to turn to the God of Israel and sought out their own Gods. The result was the plague of death. But in the end the people of God where led out of Egypt and saw God’s mighty act of redemption. Israel has continued to celebrate the deliverance of the Israelite people from the last plague – death. I continue to ponder what God is doing in all of this, but one thing is sure, we are not in control and we must turn to him, finding our faith in the redemption that His Son has borne for us on the cross again at Passover.

I started the day doing a chapter in a course I am taking called Jesus as Rabbi, The Jewish Context of the Life of Jesus. (Offered through Logos Bible Software). The chapter that I was looking at today was on Sin and salvation, which also means that repentance comes into the picture.

Early in this section I was covering the idea of Sacrifice. This again takes us back to Egypt and the many sacrifices that were being performed by the Egyptians to their Gods. The author of the course then made this comment:

“But when they were taken into the wilderness, God changed that and He reduced their sacrifices to a bare minimum. If God wanted to teach them about a single sacrifice—once for all time—this was a good way of doing it. He said, “Well, just have one morning sacrifice, one evening sacrifice.” There [were] a few others, but they were mainly food, and it’s just once a year you have the annual Day of Atonement—the one sacrifice that takes away sin. They’re starting to learn there’s going to be one sacrifice for sin.”[1]

Early on God was teaching His people that there was eventually going to be one sacrifice for sin. The Hebrews had a good deal of baggage when they came out of Egypt, and maybe that included how they viewed sin. But in the rest of the story God is trying to bring them to a more perfect understanding which unfolds in the New Covenant writings.

At the very beginning of the Gospel of John it records John the Baptist seeing Jesus and declaring  “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world![2]So sin is addressed right at the beginning with another message that we get from the other gospels – Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven has come.

Dr. Brewer pointed out that it was not the Passover lamb that took away sin, that was a celebration of God delivering his people from death and then their redemption from Egypt. It was the goat on the day of atonement that took away the sin of all the people. A young goat is also called a lamb. So, sin is addressed right in the beginning of Jesus ministry, so what where people to do?

People are told to repent. But even on the day of Atonement sins where not just automatically cleared because the sacrifice happened, there were two other things that needed to be part of the process – repentance and the forgiving of others.

In the Yoma, which is the fifth tractate of the “Order of Festivals” and is mostly concerned with Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) is says this:

“He who says, ‘I will sin and I’ll repent, [then] I’ll sin again and I’ll repent [again]’—he is not enabled to repent. [If he says:] ‘I will sin and the Day of Atonement will atone’—the Day of Atonement will not atone.”[3]

If you set out to sin knowing that the day of atonement is coming then it’s not real repentance. I would say that the same applies today – If we sin with the idea that the blood of Jesus will just cover it, then have we truly repented? True repentance comes when we truly want to avoid sin in the first place. That does not mean we won’t sin, but it becomes a matter of where the heart is.

The second part of the idea is the forgiveness of others. This fits well with the great commands of Christ – Love God and Love others. The Jewish people understood this well, as also in the Yoma it says:

“Transgressions between a man and God—the Day of Atonement atones. Transgressions between a man and his fellow—the Day of Atonement does not atone until he seeks pardon from his fellow.”[4]

In these troubled days, let us truly seek God to grant us repentance that leads to life, and if we have anyone that we need to seek forgiveness from then seek them out (Virtually right now) because God desires all people everywhere to repent!

[1] Instone-Brewer, D. (2016). NT390 Jesus as Rabbi: The Jewish Context of the Life of Jesus. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Jn 1:29). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

[3] Instone-Brewer, D. (2016). NT390 Jesus as Rabbi: The Jewish Context of the Life of Jesus. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

[4] Instone-Brewer, D. (2016). NT390 Jesus as Rabbi: The Jewish Context of the Life of Jesus. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

Circumcised Heart

On By rcannata7In Walk of obedienceLeave a comment

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good? Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.” (Deuteronomy 10:12–16, ESV)

This passage had been a puzzle to me in the past until just recently while I was studying Jeremiah chapter 4 and came across this verse…

“If you return, O Israel, declares the Lord, to me you should return. If you remove your detestable things from my presence, and do not waver, and if you swear, ‘As the Lord lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness, then nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.” For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.”” (Jeremiah 4:1–4, ESV)

This passage in Jeremiah is asking the people to return and relating it to the circumcision of the heart in a parallel passage. Ultimately what I started to see is that the desire of God for his people to circumcise their heart was ultimately asking the people to repent and return to a life of walking in God’s ways.

There is another place in Deuteronomy where God speaks of circumcising the heart of his people as they come into the land. Interesting enough God does this after he calls to mind the blessings and the curses that he had set before them after he had driven them among the nations and then desires for them to return (repent). It is upon this repentance that the Lord then declares that he will circumcise their heart and the heart of their offspring. (Deut 30:1-8)

It is a wonderful act of grace that the Lord brings back to the minds of his people the Torah and the great blessings that come with a desire to walk in the ways of the Lord. But it is contrasted with the curses that drove them out of the land and out among the nations. This is exactly what we see in some of the language that is related to the covenant God will establish through His messiah as we get a glimpse of in Ezek 36:24-27….

“I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezekiel 36:24–27, ESV)

That same grace and circumcision has now found its fullness in our Messiah and Lord Yeshua as Paul points out in his letter to the Colossians…

“In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:11–14, ESV)

By grace, the record of debt that stood against us (sin) with its legal demand (death) has been canceled and set aside. Through resurrection of our Lord we who were once dead, are now mad alive together with him.

God has acted, we must respond to this wonderful Grace. This is the good news that all started back when Yeshua began His ministry with the words “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand”. Then after the resurrection, the preaching of the word, the people who God had prepared to hear the message responded to that message…(Acts 2:37-39)

“Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”” (Acts 2:37–39, ESV)

Our response….Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Yeshua, the Messiah for the forgiveness of your sins!!!

Has the Lord prepared your heart, do you hear the message, Repent, be washed and believe in the name of our Messiah Yeshua and enter into an amazing relationship with our God.

Rend Your Heart

On By rcannata7In Walk of obedienceLeave a comment

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.” (Joel 2:12–13, ESV)

Lately this verse has been showing up in a lot of different places in some form or another. Though it is a common desire of the Lord since the fall in the Garden of Eden for man to repent and return to the Lord, the message even today seems very strong. Do we hear it? Is this a message that God’s people need to hear as well?

In my blog I have talked a lot about repentance, but today I wanted to focus on what it means to “rend your hearts”. But, before we can understand what it means, we must first have a understanding of what the word “heart” means.

Often we think of the the heart in terms of emotions like love and kindness but a biblical view of the word “lev” (heart) has a much more rich meaning.

First, I really like the ancient word picture we get from the original pictographic definition of the word for heart. Jeff Benner describes it this way:

“The first picture in this Hebrew word is a shepherd staff and represents authority as the shepherd has authority over his flock. The second letter is the picture of the floor plan of the nomadic tent and represents the idea of being inside as the family resides within the tent. When combined they mean “the authority within”. (Jeff Benner, Ancient Hebrew Word Meanings)

I have also heard it described as “that which controls the inside”. This seems to line up with other descriptions that one can find in various OT dictionaries and word study books. A summary of these could read as the heart being the seat of emotions, the seat of thought, with fear, love, anger, joy, sorrow, hatred, all attributed to the heart. Important to understand is that scripture also describes the corruption of our human nature in connection with the heart. You can read of a heart that is hardened, that is wicked, that is perverse, godless, deceitful, and desperately wicked.

In our verse from Joel above the Lord asks us to repent (return to me) with all our heart. So that which is “the authority within” needs to turn back to the Lord. We must submit our authority to the authority of the Lord. But it requires something radical. It requires weeping, mourning, and fasting. It also requires us to “rend our hearts”. The word rend is an imperative verb which suggests a command or instruction with the idea to to break, shatter, smash, crush “the authority within”. Seems that David understood what this means:

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18, ESV)  

But, how can we do this, our heart is deceitful, and wicked. Lucky for us, Scripture does not leave us hanging. Let’s just explore some verses from both the OT and NT.

“Praise the Lord! Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments! His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed…..his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid, until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.” (Psalm 112:1–8, ESV)  

This verse starts with the fear of the Lord, and relates this awe and trembling reverence to one who delights in the Lords commandments. It then describes the benefits to this delight. One of the benefits is a heart (the authority within) that is firm and trusts in the Lord, and a heart (the authority within) that is steady and is not afraid.

David also knows how this must happen:

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10, ESV)  

It is a work that David knew must come from the Lord. Later the Prophet Jeremiah would write about this in terms of a new covenant:

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”” (Jeremiah 31:33–34, ESV)

Thus we see in the New Covenant verses that being the same ideas forward…

“For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” (Romans 10:10, ESV)

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:14–19, ESV)

“And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” (Galatians 4:6–7, ESV)  

“And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.” (2 Corinthians 1:21–22, ESV)  

Ezekiel describes the removal of a heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh, what does that suggest? (I will let you ponder that one)

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezekiel 36:26–27, ESV)

There is a action of God in all of these verses that bring about the end result of a pattern of life that is careful to walk in obedience to the Lord. An interesting question still comes to mind, and the Lords instruction in Deuteronomy may help answer, what comes first – a desire to seek God, or God giving us the desire to seek him?

“And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you. And the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. And the Lord your God will put all these curses on your foes and enemies who persecuted you. And you shall again obey the voice of the Lord and keep all his commandments that I command you today.” (Deuteronomy 30:1–8, ESV)  

So, based on this pattern we could lay out this idea:

1. The Lord sets before us His pattern for living. His Word given both written and in the world around us. 

“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:19–20, ESV)

2. We remember who He is, and the promises that He has given. He sets them before us.

“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:14–17, ESV)  

3. Return to the Lord (Repent).

“Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:37–38, ESV)  

The Holy Spirit is given AFTER they repent!!

4. By God’s Spirit he circumcises our heart and gives us the ability to walk a life of obedience.

“And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. And the Lord your God will put all these curses on your foes and enemies who persecuted you. And you shall again obey the voice of the Lord and keep all his commandments that I command you today.” 

“And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” (1 John 2:3–6, ESV)  

Part of this whole process is the rending of the heart (the authority within) and then the Lord giving us the power through His spirit to walk in obedience to His commands. But it is a process, and until the Lord returns we must continue to turn to the Lord, and sometimes our old nature will require use to rend the authority within as we fall back into sin. The words our Lord had to the church of Sardis should be a sobering reminder that even the church must seek to “rend its heart”

“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “ ‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.” (Revelation 3:1–3, ESV)  

Lord, help me to put away pride and self, and to submit “the authority within” to your will.