To Turn Your Mind

Repentance or μετάνοια/metanoia is a grace of God's Holy Spirit where a sinner is humbled inwardly where they would not have been able to do it themselves and this produces a visible reform on the outside. Of course this may manifest itself in a physical outlet, it is spiritual in origin and in its effect. Repentance is literally to change one's mind which literally changes one's ways and this change finds its impetus in the divine. Where this person has no ability to recognize their sin there is no ability to be repentant. When these people do not see the evil in their sin the sword has been already put to their eye and they are better off gouging it out for it is better to lose the eye than commit the entire body to condemnation.

Some have sinned heinously and their conscience will plague them more. Some are more arrogant and their haughty spirit will take more to be brought low in humility. To these God will most likely cause greater humiliation to get them where they need to be for His purposes. Some "just won't get it" and will need to be whacked upside the head with a stout board.

Those that will be used mightily by God will be handled more vigorously by Him.Those cut from stout wood will be hard to bend and break but once conformed to the will of the Father, they become his staunchest advocate and apologetic. they become the most resolute priests in His holy priesthood.

Proverbs 3:12 ~ "...for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.

Hebrews 12:6 ~ "...for the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

Revelation 3:19 ~ "Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.

Pillars that help support edifices are often hewn from stone and take time to form. They are made with sharp glancing blows from a sharp tool in a sculptor's hand. To get the more recalcitrant and stubborn  ass to bear the heavier load, the dumb pack animal will often need a harder stripe, so too the recalcitrant believer that feels no impetus to correct their ways as they have not recognition of their wrong-doing. 

One cannot continue in one direction that is wrong and simultaneously move in another direction without either compromising their task or giving divided loyalty to one thing or the other. One must completely change their mind or turn in a new direction to change. To continue along the same or similar paths produces the same or similar results. If the paths are sinful of evil, similar paths lead to similar or the same sinful results. One must turn totally towards God or totally away. There is no middle ground.

Luke 9:62 ~ "Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

God wants us to love Him will all of our heart, soul and strength. Not half of it or 90% of it. All of it.

Deuteronomy 6:5 ~ ""You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength."  (et al Matthew 22:37)

God wants humbleness from us that comes from a repentant heart. Yes, He even wants our fellowship and wants us to be co-heirs in Him...but not at the sacrifice of true repentance. No true repentance...not true forgiveness.

Psalms 51:16-17 ~ "For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart; These, O God, You will not despise. 

A true love of God comes from obedience to His word and true obedience to His word is a sign of true love for God.

Romans 6:17 ~ "But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.

True obedience therefore requires that we give ourselves over to what God has commanded and realize that there is nothing we bring to the table that helps us in this endeavor.

Galatians 2:20 ~ "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Colossians 3:1-4 ~ "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

In repentance and relationship with God there can be no half-measures. God doesn't want part of you, you wants all parts of you. When you die, a few pieces of you are not going to Heaven and the rest going to Hell. Either all of you us righteous and gains access to Heaven through the work of Christ on the Cross...or all of you is unrighteous and cannot gain access to the presence of God in Heaven in eternity. Therefore half-repentance and half-baked measures to not gain you access to glory in God's presence, it gains you condemnation. If Jesus' work on the cross was to save our complete being, why would you think that only giving part of your attention or devotion to Him would be acceptable?  

It just doesn't follow.

God doesn't just want nominal you or an average you. He wants an extreme you. The utmost of you and the best of you. So much so that He sends you His Spirit when you confess Christ as your Savior. He wants you to turn your back on what you were. This will not happen all at once but with the work of the Holy Spirit in a process of sanctification or being made more holy...it will come until perfection is reached in our death and departure to be in God's presence forever in the Kingdom.

Ezekiel 18:30-32 ~ "I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!

Ezekiel 33:11 ~ "Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’

Matthew 3:1-2 ~ "In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”