In my quiet time this morning, I was led to a passage in Job. The passage is Job 22:21-26 and says:
21 “Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you. 22 Accept instruction from his mouth and lay up his words in your heart. 23 If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored: If you remove wickedness far from your tent 24 and assign your nuggets to the dust, your gold of Ophir to the rocks in the ravines, 25 then the Almighty will be your gold, the choicest silver for you. 26 Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty and will lift up your face to God. Job 22:21-26 (NIV)
The study asked me to extrapolate from this the steps to repentance. I found this to be really illuminating. From this passage, I got the following…
Steps to repentance:
1. Submit to God
2. Be at peace with hiim
3. Accept instruction from his mouth
4. Lay up his words in my heart
5. Return to the Almighty
6. Remove wickedness from my home
The study had me look further in this short passage for the blessings and benefits of repentance. This is what I found…
Blessings and Benefits of Repentance:
1. Being at peace–I believe that when I choose to quit striving with God–in effect make *my* peace with him–then he causes the peace that surpasses all understanding to guard my heart and mind. It is something I do and then something He does in me as well…so it is both an action of repentance and a benefit of repentance
2. Prosperity–not necessarily the way the world defines it
3. Restoration (praise God!!!)
4. The Lord Almighty will be my precious treasure–I will delight in Him and, with a clear conscience, be able to lift my face up to Him…
Now I don’t know about you, but this is definitely motivating! The point of the lesson was that in repentance we can experience glorifying God afresh. When we habitually sin and refuse to repent, God’s glory is squelched. We may not lose our salvation, but it is like one friend said to me, God’s glory is hidden by the muddy, miry, torn, frayed, tattered rag of a coat I insist on wearing…it is the coat of habitual sin, shame, and the self-life. If I toss that coat off, God’s glory can shine forth and no longer be hindered…
Another thought about “repentance,” though is that God’s KINDNESS leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). It isn’t fostered by condemnation.
In Thin Within, we call confession “observation” and repentance is called “correction”–those steps to do what *God* wants…to choose with an act of my will to go His direction and get off the Path of My Performance and back on to the Path of God’s Provision.
All for now!
