Repentance

Chris spoke on Repentance Friday night at the singles corporate meeting. It was a message that I have been eager to hear. One because Chris has been working on it for over a month now and two because I really believed that there was something I needed to learn from his message. Here are his points from 2 Corinthians 7:5-11

Regarding the nature of repentance:

We need to be students of our own sin
We must cultivate sorrow over sin
We must cultivate hatred toward sin
We must confess sin
We must turn from sin

Concerning motivation for repentance Chris pointed out that:

Christ purchased the gift of repentance on the cross
Christ is exalted when we repent

I realized how rare it is for me to have sorrow and hatred over my sin. Sure I'm sorry that I sinned but I rarely take the time to cultivate sorrow and hatred for my sin. To think that it was my sin that nailed him to the Cross. It's just seems easier to say a quick prayer of forgiveness and then try to "put on" the right thoughts and behaviors. Also I haven't really been thinking of repentance as a grace gift from the cross. I am eager to start applying this message to my life! I think I am going to start with my anger towards walmart. Once I finally found everything I was looking for in that over crowded super store we decided to save ourself a long line and head to the self check out. Cause really how hard can it be to self check 20 items? Well after the first two items scanned it appeared to malfunction and it made us press the 10 digit barcode, then enter, then choose the picture of the item on a screen. Oh my, it was bad, Trevor started screaming, I was impaitent, Chris was getting impatient and Taylor was trying to be a servant and was handing every item one by one to her daddy in which he would repeat the whole try to scan it a couple of times, have it fail, type in barcode process with. At one point I honestly wondered if we were on some sort of hidden camera show!!! But I wasn't it was just yet another opportunity for me to repent of my sin.

For further study I highly recommend Thomas Watson book Doctrine of Repentance and also listening to Chris message when you get a chance.