As we moved through our week of Solemn Assembly, a time of seeking God in repentance, I was thinking about why we need to repent. Of course it's because of sin but what is the basic, bottom-line, essential reason we need to repent?
All through that week Matthew 27:18 would not leave my mind, where Pilate knew that for envy they handed Jesus over to be crucified. Without going into how we foolishly and wrongly categorize the "big" and "little" sins, I was thinking about the
"handing over of Jesus!"
There was something they couldn't hold on to, without handing Jesus over.
Whether it's a secret line of thinking, an attitude, a habit, a grudge or a more obvious sin, for what, in our lives, do we hand Jesus over and sell Him down the river? The climax of sin is that it crucified Jesus Christ and that is true in your history and mine. Either God or sin must die in our lives. If sin rules in me, God's life in me will be killed. If God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. Repentance is choosing against anything and everything that would cause us to hand Jesus over ... and when we make the choice, the Holy Spirit gives the enabling.
The Christian Life is much more than the absence of sin. It is the awesome privilege of clothing Divinity with our humanity; it is the glorious outliving of our indwelling, risen, victorious Lord.
With love and prayers,