Repent? (May 27th-June 2nd)

I was watching television the other day (how interesting to start a study on repentance with watching TV!) and I was captivated by this very interesting and dynamic preacher. He was talking about the process of thinking and the power that it holds.

I believe he stated that it all starts with precept – this handy little guy pops up before conscience thought actually happens: It is the prelude to a concept. In other words, when you actually think of something it is the result of one of your precepts birthing a concept.

Okay, now we’ve got our concept but that’s all it is at this point: a concept. So, we have to bring more structure to it in our mind, really think about it…now our concept becomes a thought/idea.

Alright, now we’re thinking (literally) and we want to communicate it to others, after all what’s the point of coming up with an idea if it can’t be shared with others? Unless technology makes some major advancements the only way one can share his or her ideas is through words.

We’re almost at the end of this process (at least for now), which is when you open up your mouth and speak. You carve through your vocabulary and try your best to clothe your ideas with the few words you have available. Encapsulate enough of these ideas in words and you’ve got yourself an ideal.

Why is it ideal you may ask? Because it’s perfect! At least to you…after all, if you came across something better then you’d replace your present thoughts with those.

Of course, the man preaching this explained it much better and didn’t try to sum it up in a few sentences as I just tried to do.

At the end of this little presentation he made two points that I thought were fascinating:

1) Scripture tells us that Jesus is the Word (John 1:1). So keeping the previously mentioned information in mind we can say that Jesus was God communicating His ideas to us. God wrapped Himself in flesh (just as ideas are wrapped in words) in order to communicate His ideal with us. Hence, Jesus is God’s ideal…His perfect way.

And…

2) The primary definition of repentance in New Testament scripture is “to think differently” or “reconsider”.

Wait a minute; that can’t be right. I was always told that repentance meant to do a one-eighty or turn around and go in the opposite direction. In other words, it had to do with actions not thoughts. Yet this man was saying, Jesus came to warn us to change the way we think! Of course, I can’t blindly follow the ways of Mr. Television Preacher Man so I will look into it myself.

“In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near’.”

~Matthew 3:2

I looked up the original definition for the word they’ve translated as “repent” and the definition given was, “to think differently or afterwards, that is, reconsider” (Strong’s 3340). So, what was the message that John, the forerunner of Christ, was preaching?

Change the way you think for the kingdom of heaven is near.

Well that’s fine and dandy for John the Baptist but what about Jesus? What was His message?

“From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near’.”

~Matthew 4:17

In fact, as I searched through the New Testament I found this word 23 times (10 of those instances in the book of Revelation)! It’s as though the Gospel and Epistles are yelling at us, “change the way you think before it’s too late!”

One only has to read the Beatitudes or the Sermon on the Mount to realize just how different our thinking is compared to God.

Am I suggesting as long as we think about things “correctly” we can do as we please? Are our actions inconsequential before God? Of course not! Taking in the entire counsel of scripture we can see that our actions are very important. A perfect example is seen in the parable of the sheep and the goats…as Keith Green sang, “the only difference between the sheep and the goats is what they did and did not do” (Matthew 25:31-46).

The overarching point in all of this is that our thoughts determine our actions! If I truly think that the least in this world will be considered the greatest in the kingdom of heaven then I will seek to be the least. If I think that prayer can move mountains and save souls then I will pray! If my actions do not line up with this then you can be sure that my thinking doesn’t, and if that’s the case, then God calls me to repent: change the way I think.

God knew that the only way to change a man is from the inside out.

After all, the Law was an expression of God’s ideal just as Jesus was. We weren’t meant to make a checklist and say, “as long as I don’t do any of this stuff I am okay.” God was giving us insight into what He valued and His desire for us to value the same thing.

I value life so do not murder.

I value order and respect so honor your parents.

I value love…well that one pretty much encompasses all the commandments.

His intent was that we also value life, order, respect and love and when we didn’t get it through the Law He sent Jesus to reiterate the point.

Of course God knew that we couldn’t be as He is on our own so that’s why we have the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah…but that would lead us into a whole new study so I better stop here.

I guess the comfort that I find in this revelation is realizing that I have repented of the way I thought.

There was a day that I realized the way I thought about life and the world is wrong and it was causing me to make bad decisions that were leading me towards death. This fact is amazing but it doesn’t mean that I immediately stop doing wrong things…mainly because my mind is not reprogrammed overnight: I must continue to repent. But now I can understand that when my actions are wrong there is wrong thinking behind it, which makes me all the more prepared to do battle.

Instead of waging war against the flesh and taking a stand against that action, I can instead try to understand what thought lead me to this action and repent of it by replacing it with what God thinks on the matter.

It sounds simple enough but it’s not what most of us are told to do. We focus on the action and try to put barriers up to prevent ourselves from sinning.

“Well, sometimes when I go on the internet I look at pornography so I am never going to use the internet again!” or “Sometimes I overeat so I think I am going to stop eating all together”.

To some it may sound silly and to others they may say, “well yes, if you sometimes look at internet pornography then stop using the internet…after all it is better to ‘gouge out your eye’ then, yadda, yadda, yadda…” But we can’t take this approach with all things as we see with the overeating example.

Besides, do you really think it’s the internet that is the problem in this situation? It is simply a symptom of a deeper issue that will merely pop up some where else in that person’s life.

Instead of this endless cycle of sinning and then repenting of our actions over and over again perhaps we should try the method God suggested?

After all, the only way we can truly be transformed is by the renewing of our mind…sound familiar? (Romans 12:2).