Apologies vs. Repentance

SAINTS! LISTEN UP!

I’ve been talking with a dear Christian sister about our struggles with being human, with always falling short of His glory, and with always sinning and giving in to temptation. We talked about God’s grace being sufficient, and His love never ending; BUT that doesn’t mean we can just go on sinning. We came to a conclusion that goes:

“It’s only by His grace that we are saved, and in that we should put our faith and trust on. That doesn’t mean we should go about our shortcomings like a cycle of God-forgives so we-forget. What the stories in the Bible are telling us is that God is a God of second chances, and that He wants us to repent–sincerely repent. And to ask Him for grace not to be waived off our sins again, but to teach us to change, the way He wants us to.”

Then it hit me: Have I been repenting, or only apologizing?

In the Oxford English Dictionary (Online) to repent is defined as:

“To review one’s actions and feel contrition or regret for something one has done or omitted to do; (esp. in religious contexts) to acknowledge the sinfulness of one’s past action or conduct by showing sincere remorse and undertaking to reform in the future.”

(“repent, v.”. OED Online. December 2011. Oxford University Press. 22 February 2012 <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/162742?rskey=EXLQZ8&result=4&isAdvanced=false&gt;.)

For the most part, I’ve only been apologizing: saying SORRY. That’s not what God wants!

Sure, He is pleased that we acknowledge our shortcomings and our faults and that we express remorse for them; but that’s not enough. He asks for REPENTANCE not APOLOGIES. Apologies are great, they are the first step to repentance: recognizing that we are wrong and that we need help; but repentance goes further than that. Repentance entails a complete turn around — we stop walking in the direction we’re going, and turn back to go to where He wants us to go! Apology is just stopping in our tracks and staying there, that’s not what He wants.

From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 4:17)

Jesus did not say “Apologize for your sins! For the kingdom of heaven has come near.” NO, He said: REPENT.

Also, listen to Paul in Acts 20:21, he says:

I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.

He did not tell the Jews and the Greeks to “turn to God and apologize,” he said REPENT.

When we sin and then repent, we are just doing what we’re supposed to: we fall, so we have to get up. However, abuse of His grace comes when we sin and we just keep apologizing and think we’re OKAY by virtue of His grace.

Apology is not repentance, if it were, Jesus would’ve used apologize in His preaching.

I, and everyone else, am not abusing God’s grace when I genuinely repent. I feel bad about taking His grace for granted because I only have “apology” in mind. If you’ve always been feeling guilty about constantly sinning and then saying sorry, then fellow saint, that must be God bugging you saying: Child, I don’t need your apologies, I want your repentance. Repentance means DOING something; it’s turning AWAY from our sins — not just saying sorry for them.

Now I will echo John the Baptist’s call: REPENT! 

Blessed Beyond Words

Last time I posted about one of my dearest friends writing about God’s Unfailing Love, and I even added a page so you guys can check out how she encounters God.

At that time, I was so happy to finally be able to start having more people write about His love, His grace, and HIM! I’ve always said that I want to keep blogging to 1) share what God has been revealing to me, and 2) to create a community where people could feel connected to one another as a united body in Christ.

Guess what? God has, AGAIN, been too gracious!

Just this morning God showed me how He was granting me my desires of having a community. Turns out, a couple of my friends are actually blogging too — blogging about Him! So, of course, the only logical thing to do… is to tell you guys about it!

Here are some of their posts that really struck me:

1) Denice Daily: My Constant Struggle to Glorify God

The best encouragement one can get, is definitely from someone going through the same thing. It’s like having someone say “I know how you feel.” — and they ACTUALLY DO! Glory is something we HAVE to always give back to Him, but with our humanity, it’s SO tempting (and a lot easier) to just embrace it all. We’ve all been given special “glorifying gifts,” and the temptation is always there to STEAL the glory from the One Who Actually Deserves It.

2) Believing the Unbelievable: What Should I Do When God Seems Far Away?

A good friend of mine shared with me her post after reading mine. It’s really amazing how God’s truths are REALLY alive. When I wrote the post Salt and Light: FOCUS! I wrote it as a reminder for me to always focus. When I was writing that, I was struggling to keep myself from making foolish choices. Then I got to read how she read my post, for her, it became a reminder of how God is so faithful. The reminder and caution God gave me to keep me walking forward, God used to reassure her that He is always there and would always be there. Same God, same Love, spoken differently. God knows us way better than we’ll ever be able to understand; and He’ll talk to us in the way He knows would be best for US. With God? Everything is personalized. 🙂

3) Dianne-amic Duo:Written for the Lord

Again, God used friends to remind me of why I’m writing: for Him and HIM ALONE. It’s so surreal to read about how someone actually shared the same struggles in writing. As I’ve written in More than blessed!, I have trouble with over thinking about everything I would be posting. And for the most part, it turns out to be my pride taking over. I want to take note of everything I write, and I want to make sure everything I write sounds really great and profound — all these were because I wanted it for myself. I had fears that what I wrote would offend others, would not be good enough, or would be “wrong.” God rebuked me. Now, He’s reminding me again. I am writing for Him and through Him! Read their post to make more sense of what I’m saying.

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It really is such a blessing to read about how God has been working in others, especially when you see similarities in how God’s been dealing with them and you.

I would really love for you guys to be able to read their blogs. We’re no bible scholars; we’re just saints talking about how we are BELOVED of the God of Love Himself. Read about how their relationship with Christ has been going, how He has been changing them, and how He shows his Love to them. It sure inspired me, I bet it would you too.

I am so in love with Love right now, He’s just too much! 🙂

I’ll be adding pages you can access through the drop down menus on top of the page under “The Communion of Saints.” I’ll be including their blogger profiles and links to their sites too.

God is working in so many ways, to even be allowed to see one is just AWESOME. 🙂 Pure bliss! 

Faithful? You don’t know the half of it!

Recently, I’ve really been passionate about writing here. It’s just that He’s been revealing a LOT to me, and so I keep writing.

A lot of times, I’d be struggling with something, and the moment He shows me the way out, I write about it!

But, as I’ve been repeating countless times: even as saints, we still are human. This prodigal saint has his share of humanity too — school work. I don’t like it, but I have to do it. Deadlines and exams are piling up, and I just don’t want to do them.

My weekend starts every Thursday — yup, I’m one of those college dudes that have long weekends EVERY week. So when the weekend kicks in, I go into vacation-mode. From Thursdays to Sundays, I’ll be at church everyday for choir practice, fellowships, etc. I feel like it’s summer when Thursdays come by. So when Monday comes along, all my work piles up on me.

For the past few days, I’ve been very tired. There are things God is changing within me, there are things I do for His church, there’s stress with rehearsals for an Easter Cantata, and then there’re school work — I have to deal with all of these. It’s not a fun feeling to be burdened down by all these.

I find myself struggling to just focus on Him and that all I do is for Him. Sadly, staying focus isn’t my only problem: when you’re down and tired, it’s when Satan tries his best to fill you with lies.

“Pst. PSSSST! Hey, you! What are you doing? Praying again? You actually think He’s going to help you? PLEASE! Wake up! He’s a narcissistic God, He’ll only care about Himself! Can’t you see? He’s getting you involved in all these services you do for Him. You’re keeping a blog for His glory, you’re in the choir three times a week — you’re spending way too much time in church when you’re supposed to be studying. When has He even helped you with your studies, huh? Does He care? NO! Wake up! You’re not His son, you’re His slave! He won’t be helping you, look, you have tons of papers due — good luck with that!”

The devil taunts me to let go of God’s unfailing love. He’s filling my head with doubt. I struggled. It’s hard to think straight when you’re emotionally unstable. But by God’s grace, I was still able to pray. I sent the devil away, and surrendered in prayer. Nothing has changed, I still have deadlines and exams, I’m still tired; but who cares, I’ll just lift it up to Him.

So today, I just finished writing my history midterm. Also, today I handed in my history paper which was a day late. I did the paper on the night of the submission day, finished it at around 4AM the next day. So when I handed in my midterm exam, my professor smiled at me and said: “Your paper was great!” I didn’t pay her much attention, I was tired from writing an exam for two hours — it was at the end of my day, and I had a whole day of classes and I only got to review in between classes, I was just glad to get it over with. She handed me my paper, which she just graded, and first thing I saw was (- 2%) on my title page. I knew that, so I went out of the room and stopped by the stairs to read through her comments.

I was feeling exited, I don’t know why. But when I got to the last page this met my eyes: “91” I GOT AN A+! (The original grade was a 93, and it came with “I don’t usually give A+!”)

I could actually hear God saying to me: “What did I tell you? Just trust in Me!”

He actually saw me through! And NO! He did not just care about His ministry, HE LOVES ME! He’s taking care of me, He knows my every need, and He’s my FAITHFUL HEAVENLY FATHER who’d ALWAYS SEE ME THROUGH!

I walked to the bus stop giggling and smiling all the way — I think people might have though I was crazy or something. I don’t care! I was walking on sunshine, He just dispelled all my doubts and my cares.

What’s even sweeter? He did not need to do that! He was God! I am a servant, He does not need to prove anything to me! But in His love? He did so. He really is the God of love — LOVE Himself. He is just the SWEETEST! ♥

“The one who calls you is faithful, and He will do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24)

OH YES HE IS! AND YES HE WILL!