“Lord, I am so sorry and am grieving that I am not believing I am righteous, and I repent of that right now.”
“Everyone who has been believing lies about God, others, your circumstances, or about yourself, run to the altar right now and repent.”
“Before you participate in communion repent of the belief that you are not 100% worthy to do so through Jesus’ obedience and death on the cross.”
These statements are not the norm in how we think, but maybe they should be? Because the Greek meaning of the word repentance is “to change the way you think”. We need to plan for some powerful repentance meetings (individually and corporately) where people will repent from beliefs like this:
- “Lord, I am so sorry that I have believed that I am whom my past says I am and not who You say I am..”
- “Father, I am so sorry that I have not believed You love me unconditionally..”
- “Lord, I am grieved that I have believed that I am a sinner instead of a saint.” and
- “Father, I am experiencing deep Godly sorrow because I have believed I am unworthy to be blessed.”
We should never devalue the importance of repenting from wrong behaviours, but the greatest thing to repent from is believing lies. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “No temptation has come upon you except which is common to man . . . “.
The most dangerous temptations we face are to believe lies.
The devil is the father of all lies (John 8:44). He is only empowered when we meditate on and believe his falsehoods. This is what happened to Eve in the garden in Genesis 3. She was first deceived about God’s character and then sinned in her actions. We all hear the same lies that we need to repent from.
Repentance is not a one-time event. Repentance is indeed a lifestyle, not an event. We are to daily and intentionally change the way we think (repent). Then we are transformed by the renewing of our minds.
Mostly, when led to repentance we examine our behaviour and not our beliefs. This can be the reason some of us feel unworthy to participate in in worship or communion. We hold onto the belief that ‘we have not measured up behaviourally’, when the real problem is we fail to believe that God’s grace in and through Jesus is weaker than our brokenness. So let’s get our beliefs sorted by consistently repenting of the lies we believe.
The best place to start, the key to a repentant lifestyle is valuing and immersing ourselves in God’s Word. It will actually cause us to let go of lies and believe truth:
- Abide in the Word, know truth, be made free – “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).
- Word in our heart prevents sin – “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You” (Psalm 119:11).
Let’s truly make it a lifestyle to repent and not quit until we have glistening hope in the area we are repenting of. Remember, it is a process, so celebrate your progress. Bless you, much.
Adapted from a blog by Steve Backlund 20th June 2022 for more go to ignitinghope.com