repent of my repentance

Do you realize that our very acts of sorrow over sin and repentance before God are often in need of repenting of?  It can be very easy to find ourselves listening to the lie that we are doing what God desires when we repent - which is true in and of itself.  God does clearly command us all to repent of our sins, and it pleases Him when we come to Him seeking pardon.  But far too often, our motives for repenting are themselves ungodly.  

Examine your prayers of confession for a moment.  Do you have an overwhelming sense of the vileness and danger of sin, as John Owen puts it "as represented in the blood and cross of Christ", always abiding with you?  Is your motive a godly grief over sins that the Savior has spilt His blood to pardon - sins that He has already buried in the ocean of His mercy?

Or do you repent because you fear what God will do to you if you don't?  Fear what the consequences of your sins will be? Do you repent out of some sense of necessity, as if the work of repentance must be done continually in order to maintain your state of salvation? Or merely out of a desire to ease your bothered conscience, with little or no concern for Christ and the way your sins have slighted and grieved Him?  I think Tim Keller puts it best:

"Repentance out of mere fear is really sorrow for the consequences of sin, sorrow over the danger of sin — it bends the will away from sin, but the heart still clings. But repentance out of conviction over mercy is really sorrow over sin, sorrow over the grievousness of sin — it melts the heart away from sin. It makes the sin itself disgusting to us, so it loses its attractive power over us. We say, ‘this disgusting thing is an affront to the one who died for me. I'm continuing to stab him with it!"

You see what is being said here?  If our repentance is not done for the simple fact that we have seen what our Savior has done in His rich mercy, and are continually and humbly beholding our sins in the horror and offensiveness of the cross, we have not really repented!  "The heart still clings" to sin if we are merely sorry for our sin for any other reason.

So let us fix our eyes upon Jesus Christ - and leave them there.  Let us be in continual awareness of our sin and His grace as displayed on Calvary.  For how can there be any drop of arrogance, any self-centered prayer, any love for another, when we truly and rightly behold the beautiful Savior who died there for us?

And let us also behold this same Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father.  For He did not stay on the cross. He rose again. And "ever lives above, for me to intercede"!  His perfect righteousness covers my every sin - yes, even those polluted prayers.  His blood speaks a better word.

May this be our prayer today:  (taken from the Valley of Vision)

O God of Grace,

Thou hast imputed my sin to my substitute,

and hast imputed His righteousness to my soul,

clothing me with a bridegroom's robe,

decking me with jewels of holiness.

But in my Christian walk I am still in rags;

my best prayers are stained with sin;

my penitential tears are so many impurity;

my confessions of wrong are so many aggravations of sin;

my receiving the Spirit is tinctured with selfishness.

I need to repent of my repentance;

I need my tears to be washed;

I have no robe to bring to cover my sins,

no loom to weave my own righteousness;

I am always standing clothed in filthy garments,

and by grace am always receiving change of raiment.

for Thou dost always justify the ungodly.

I am always going into the far country,

and always returning home as a prodigal.

always saying, Father, forgive me,

and Thou art always bringing forth the best robe.

Every morning let me wear it,

every evening return in it,

go out to the day's work in it,

be married in it,

be wound in death in it,

stand before the great white throne in it,

enter heaven in it shining as the sun.

Grant me never to lose sight of the exceeding sinfulness of sin,

the exceeding righteousness of salvation,

the exceeding glory of Christ,

the exceeding beauty of holiness,

the exceeding wonder of grace.

Owen on The Means of Mortifying Sin

"Let, then, your soul by faith be exercised with such thoughts and apprehensions as these:

I am a poor, weak creature; unstable as water, I cannot excel. This corruption is too hard for me, and is at the very door of ruining my soul; and what to do I know not. My soul is become as parched ground, and an habitation of dragons. I have made promises and broken them; vows and engagements have been as a thing of naught. Many persuasions have I had that I had got the victory and should be delivered, but I am deceived; so that I plainly see, that without some eminent succor and assistance, I am lost, and shall be prevailed on to an utter relinquishment of God. But yet, though this be my state and condition, let the hands that hang down be lifted up, and the feeble knees be strengthened. Behold, the Lord Christ, that has all fullness of grace in his heart [John 1:16], all fullness of power in his hand [Matt. 28:18], he is able to slay all these his enemies. There is sufficient provision in him for my relief and assistance. He can take my drooping, dying soul and make me more than a conqueror [Rom. 8:37].

'Why do you say, O my soul, my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Have you not known, have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint." (Isa. 40:27-31).'

He can make the 'dry, parched ground of my soul to become a pool, and my thirsty, barren heart as springs of water'; yea, he can make this 'habitation of dragons', this heart, so full of abominable lusts and fiery temptations, to be a place for 'grass' and fruit to himself (Isa. 35:7).

So God staid Paul, under His temptation, with the consideration of the sufficiency of his grace: 'My grace is sufficient for you' (2 Cor. 12:9)

Doing Hard Things... a Joy or a Burden?

A few weeks ago, my sister Emily and I attended the Rebelution Do Hard Things Conference in Gaithersburg, Maryland. It was an incredible experience that I am sure we will not soon forget. At the conference, we both purchased really cool t-shirts. Mine is dark blue, with "Do Hard Things" written on the back. (Exactly like the picture shown). As I wore my shirt around the house a few days later, so excited and ready to do hard things, one of my other sisters, who is 9 years old, made a comment. She said something like this: "Do hard things? Who would want to do that? That shirt should say 'do easy things'!"

While the statement is funny and made me laugh, it also saddened me to see how she misunderstood it. And I also think that there are many, many others who would say the same thing. I mean, really? Why would you want to do something hard when there are so many easier and "fun" things you could do instead? I started saying something like: "No! Doing hard things is good! If you always do what's easy you will waste your life!" I wanted so bad for her to see and understand the foolishness of an easy life and how good it was to do hard things!

But lately, I have been thinking. So often we as Christians think along those same lines. We know that following Christ in this world will be hard. But far too often we give in to that temptation to do what the world and our own sinful nature tells us, which is to do the easy thing. We grow tired of fighting sin so quickly. We even try to rationalize sin by making excuses that are even more sinful.

Every moment of every day we as Christians ought to be resisting sin and striving after righteousness, holiness, and humility for the glory of God in our lives. John Piper wrote in his book What Jesus Demands from the World says that the "Greek word behind the English "strive" is recognizable in English transliteration agonizesthe. You can see the word "agonize" in that Greek word. The implication is that we must struggle, wrestle and exert ourselves." In other words, striving after righteousness and living for Christ is extremely hard.

While we are still on this earth, and still in this weak and fallen flesh, though we are redeemed by Christ's blood, we still must wage war against the powers of evil within and without us (Romans 7). We so often tend to think that the more we grow in godliness and holiness, the easier it will be to overcome sin. How we fail to realize the truth is the exact opposite. It only gets harder. John Owen writes in his book Sin and Temptation, "There is no duty we perform for God that sin does not oppose. And the more spirituality or holiness there is in what we do, the greater is its enmity to it. Thus, those who seek the most for God experience the strongest opposition."

The Lord Himself has called His children to take up their crosses and follow Him. Our merciful Savior Himself endured the greatest hardship and suffering that any human has ever known at the cross of Calvary. Who are we as His followers to think that we deserve an easier life?

Yes this Christian life is hard. And yes this fierce and daily battle will continue as long as we live on this earth. But there is hope and comfort in the Savior, who has promised at the end, to deliver His children from their bodies of death. What a glorious hope we have in Him!

Let us keep pressing on, rejoicing in the great privilege we have as God's children, to be followers of His Son, bearers of His cross, and those who count all earthly gain but loss for the sake of knowing Him! There indeed is nothing harder than living for the Savior in a world and hearts where sin is rampant. But there also nothing that brings greater joy!

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto JESUS, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the JOY that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:1