BEEN THINKING ABOUT REPENTANCE AGAIN

BEEN THINKING ABOUT REPENTANCE AGAIN

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

Romans [CEV] 12:1-3 Dear friends, God is good. So I beg you to offer your bodies to him as a living sacrifice, pure and pleasing. That's the most sensible way to serve God. Don't be like the people of this world, but let God change the way you think. Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to him. I realize how kind God has been to me, and so I tell each of you not to think you are better than you really are. Use good sense and measure yourself by the amount of faith that God has given you.

1Corinthians 13:4-13 Love is kind and patient, never jealous, boastful, proud, or rude. Love isn't selfish or quick tempered. It doesn't keep a record of wrongs that others do. Love rejoices in the truth, but not in evil. Love is always supportive, loyal, hopeful, and trusting. Love never fails! Everyone who prophesies will stop, and unknown languages will no longer be spoken. All that we know will be forgotten. We don't know everything, and our prophecies are not complete. But what is perfect will someday appear, and what isn't perfect will then disappear. When we were children, we thought and reasoned as children do. But when we grew up, we quit our childish ways. Now all we can see of God is like a cloudy picture in a mirror. Later we will see him face to face. We don't know everything, but then we will, just as God completely understands us. For now there are faith, hope, and love. But of these three, the greatest is love.

2Corinthians 13:5-6 Test yourselves and find out if you really are true to your faith. If you pass the test, you will discover that Christ is living in you. But if Christ isn't living in you, you have failed. I hope you will discover that we have not failed.

  I’ve been thinking about repentance again. Out of necessity I do so for otherwise I can’t properly examine my exercise of fellowship with God and man.

  First of all I again remind myself that repentance doesn’t begin with abstinence. It begins with the applied exercise explained in Romans 12:1-3; reviewing as to whether my worldview is influenced by a life-is-all-about-me attitude, and scrutinizing how much of my thinking is grounded in God’s Word as opposed to in man’s contrarian word? I do so because somewhere back along my lifeline I had the personal revelation that actions and reactions flow naturally out of truly held belief and understanding.

  Several other of my historical Romans 12:1-3 life-changing items:

·         Realizing and accepting that I’m never going to completely understand everything.

·         Realizing and accepting that it is not necessary for me to understand everything.

·         Anger, bitterness, and other detrimental emotions are a choice.

·         Love is a choice.

·         Love is most often in a language non-verbal.

·         Manhood is not a result of puberty. (And that puberty often interferes with manhood)

·         When I do understand something in the light of God’s Word I am then responsible.

·         Here it is I, not He, that’s responsible for the health of my spirit, soul, and body.

·         God provides but I must apply that which He provides.

EBB4