Repent
Acts 2:38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
So, here’s a question that’s likely to make a few people squirm. What bad behaviour, what thing that you know is wrong, do you keep on doing over and over again? Think about it. What persistent sin do you have in your life.
Probably, you deal with it this way. You know it’s wrong, so you rationalise it. You make excuses. You tell yourself, “Well, you know, it’s only small sin. In the scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter. It isn’t hurting anyone.”
Let me be blunt. In God’s eyes, there is no such thing as a small sin. Sin is sin.
We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).
If that’s burst a bubble or two (and I’m pretty sure I can hear a few going off right now) then good. If you know that there is this one, persistent sin that keeps on keeping on, that one persistent sin that you’ve been sweeping under the rug for way too long, then I have a word for you today.
Repent. Now there’s a word from religious antiquity – right? I mean, it’s a word that for many years sent a shiver down my spine. How … how can those Christians use tacky, irrelevant, religious words like “repent” and expect anyone to listen. Seriously??!!
Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38)
I remember the first time I watched someone die. It was in a hospital room and I saw her breathe her last breath. She died of lung cancer. It was deeply, profoundly moving. There she was – stone, cold, dead. All because of those cigarettes she’d smoked as a much younger woman.
At the time I was a very heavy smoker. I used to smoke three packets a day. I was so addicted, that I’d light a cigarette up at my desk, only to discover that I already had one on the go, resting in the ashtray.
But that night, as I walked out of that hospital ward, I remember that there was this grey metal bin just outside the door. I took my half-full packet of cigarettes and threw them in that bin. That was almost forty years ago. I haven’t had a single cigarette since.
That one decision, that turning away from smoking – and that’s what repentance is, it’s literally a turning away from sin – has no doubt saved my life.
Back to that one, “little” persistent sin that we were talking about earlier. If you continue in it, my friend, listen to me, it will eventually kill you. The wages of sin is death.
Repent.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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