Move your heart closer and closer to God, and he will come even closer to you. But make sure you cleanse your life, you sinners, and keep your heart pure and stop doubting
- James 4:8
Recently I have been thinking about repentance and more so repentance in the day to day or even moment to moment. I wondered how often I find myself with a repentant heart or what motivates me to repentance. Is it because I know it's wrong or because I desire to be near the Lord and not wanting anything keeping me from knowing Him intimately.
We all have moments where our thoughts, words or actions are not reflecting christ but how often do we look at the importance of repenting from that nature or just moving along and brushing it off because it wasn't that "big".
Romans 6:22-23 reads:
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
How do we first obtain this freedom from sin? We repent and turn to the Lord. What is the result of sin? death, separation from God. Repentance is not only for the beginning of receiving salvation, it is always. The point of the Cross is so we can have relationship, intimate fellowship the the Lord. We can't have that if we are sinning but also we can't have that if we are not repenting.
I find myself repenting of so many things throughout the day, I don't want to be found with a heart issue or sin problem that removes me from knowing my heavenly Father in an intimate way. I'm not looking to have general knowledge of the Lord and go from there just like I don't seek to have shallow surface level relationship with the people around me. I want my heart to be clean and pure. I want my actions, thoughts and words to reflect the kingdom. Repentance is key to doing so. Inviting the Lord into the process is essential as well, asking him to search our hearts so that we my know and repent of any harmful way in us. As I have been thinking on this and intentionally acting on it, I extend this invitation to you. Ask the Lord to search you but also be mindful of moments where it seems you need to repent. Let the desire to be near to the Lord draw to repentance and further more into a righteous life.
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