“For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.”
II Corinthians7:10-11NKJV
The last weekend in September, tens of thousands of Christians gathered together in the Nation’s capital for a time of prayer and repentance. People said it was a powerful event and it was to turn our hearts back to God. The first question that came to mine was what type of repentance took place?
Often in the church we downplay repentance. We may look at our life and actions and recognize some things that need to change and repent of those things. Maybe we want something from God and we pick some sins to confess so God will answer our prayers. My experience is that rarely do we do real repentance in the church or as a group. We say a couple of prayers and ask God to forgive us but we do not experience transformation in our lives. Often times we have worldly sorrow and not godly sorrow.
When we allow the Holy Spirit to really search our hearts and reveal the wickedness that exists this will lead to godly sorrow and true repentance. This type of searching takes some time and we must allow the Holy Spirit to go deep in our hearts. Usually our sin issues are not our behaviors only but what is at the center of the hearts. We can continue to operate in our gifts, serve God, sing praise songs and have wickedness hidden in our hearts. Our motives are not pure and we lust and covet for things. God judges the heart. Someone can give everything they have to the poor and do it for self ambition and self promotion and that act of giving will not be pleasing to God.
There are many issues of wickedness the church must confront but the one place we must deal with first is our hearts and allow the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and show us any wickedness that exits and repent of it. We must do this individually and as the body of Christ.
For most individuals the sin that lurks in the heart the most is unforgiveness. As the body I believe we allow hatred to remain at the core of our attitude toward those outside the church or those we judge in the church. We lack love and compassion. These are the two main issues that will keep us out of the will of the Father and hinder our prayers. There are other sins that will hinder prayers. However, Jesus emphasized the need for us to forgive others and love everyone including our enemies.
So as I read about the prayer event at the nations capital I wondered have we really confronted our own issues of offense, hurt and hatred? We have given Satan such a foothold in our nation that we really need to first allow the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and minds and reveal our wickedness.
A journey of repentance is very important and also freeing. It is very difficult to confront the evil that resides in our hearts and deal with it. Yet we have Jesus Christ who has died for our sins and there is no condemnation in Him. When we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins. It is time for us to really begin to explore what is at the heart of the church body, and turn to God.
Reflections 