Disoriented to be Reoriented

There is a moment when God breaks through into our cluttered minds and it generally is at those times of tremendous tumult.  We have realized just have far blown our sin is and it is crashing upon our heads.  Repentance is one of the great themes of the Bible and something Jesus talked about repeatedly.  We may feel badly about what we have done or more often embarrassed by our public disgraces but that is not the same thing as repentance.  When the Holy Spirit reveals our badness in a matter; it is never to make us throw up our hands in despair, it is always to bring us to radical change.  There are countless numbers of hand wringers in the world; those who wish they had acted differently and it doesn't take the least bit of God for that.  But to prefer holiness over the life of the world requires the supernatural work of the atonement of Christ.  When our Savior gathers Himself in us through His Cross, He begins to live at the edges of our lives.  We forgive, show mercy, are kind, reject all forms of sexual immorality, love sacrificially, walk humbly.  This is impossible if Christ is not blending His life with ours so that we act upon the impulses of God rather than our previous lusts and sin marred concerns.  One look at the Sermon on the Mount and we despair of ever really living the truly Christian lifestyle but with Christ in us, we can do it.  We can accept the insults of those who turn on us and not reply in kind.  We can look away when our eye is intrigued by a forbidden attraction.  We can hold our tongue when we want so badly to defend ourselves.  We can befriend the enemies of God and give sacrificially to those who don't deserve our worst, let alone our best.  Nothing is quite so discombobulating as the realization that God really does live in you and He wants to work His way out of you in your common behaviors.  It is then as you give Him free access that you discover that you actually are supernaturally remade by Christ into a new Creation, one built for holiness in everyday thoughts and activities.

You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.   Leviticus 20:26 NIV

Changed Mind

Matthew 21:29 NIV

 "'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

Have You Changed Your Mind Lately?

I am not very fickle and I rarely change my mind when I have decided something but the other day I was ready to get rid of our cat.  She doesn’t really care about anyone but our daughter, she drags her claws on the sofa, she sheds all over the house and lately she has taken up going to the bathroom in our shower.  Our cat is grumpy, eats too much and doesn’t care if you come or go.  She only demands, never gives.  I can’t say she even really wants any of us to touch her.  So when a family friend said she was interested in taking our cat if we didn’t want her, I was very happy about the prospect.  Unfortunately it only lasted a week.  Our friend was hoping for a cat that purred, rested quietly on her lap, wanted to stay inside and liked her.  Our cat has absolutely no people skills and is not interested in making anyone happy and soon she was back in our apartment shedding once more everywhere.  But, I must say that I changed my mind about our cat.  I still would not get too upset if she got into drugs and was busted by the police or found a boyfriend and decided to move with him to Michigan but I was glad she was back with us because I saw how much my daughter loved her.  What seemed so dreadful, that our cat would be returned to us, I actually felt good about.  I changed my mind.

Perhaps you have changed your mind about how you thought of someone.  An enemy actually became a friend, a job you disliked you now enjoy doing.  Perhaps you now like where you live or have changed your mind about someone who asked you out for a date.  It could be that your thoughts about God have changed over time or even your views of heaven and eternity are different.  Sometimes it is quite a major change in thinking that we experience; even our family members are shocked, co-workers and classmates are surprised.  Would you shock even yourself if you changed political parties or made a flip-flop on your view of climate change, eating meat or which sports teams were your favorites?  How easy is it for you to change your mind and when it comes to how you think, is it true that “change is good”?  Do you need a change in how you think, in the way your life is going?  Do you think it really is possible for you to change in regard to the most important parts of your life?

The New Testament uses a particular word that carries with it negative connotations for many people.  You may have heard preachers use it and it bothered you the way it was expressed in sermons.  Unfortunately this word is often misunderstood and viewed as strictly a “religious word”.  John the Baptist is quoted in one of his sermons using it.  Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. (Matthew 3:8 NIV)  Jesus used the word to explain His work.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." (Luke 5:32 NIV)  The Apostle Paul stated that it was also his mission to present the same message.  I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus. (Acts 20:21 NIV)  Repentance is a great word that despite what some people think of it, presents the perfect picture of what every helping profession from psychologists to doctors and dentists hope to accomplish.  The goal of all these professionals is to bring about repentance.  Let me explain!

The English word “to repent” has Latin and French roots and speaks mostly of feeling badly about what one has done.  Guilt is a key component in the Latin and French terms.  That is often what we associate with repentance.  Repentance, at least as the early French and Catholics indicated, was all about the emotional side of realizing what you had done was wrong; it was about feeling guilty for bad behavior.  To some degree, that is how repentance may work for many of us but that is not the Biblical sense of repentance.  Repentance is a rather narrow English translation of the Greek word found in the New Testament and this Greek word means more than just feeling badly about your actions.  The Biblical expression is actually a combination of two Greek words which when put together mean, “to change the mind”.  It describes a morphing from one way of thinking to another, a “conversion” of thinking.

We see this illustrated by Martha, the sister of Lazarus who was raised by Jesus from the dead.  In Luke 10, Martha is agitated that she has to work hard in the kitchen while her sister is free to sit at Jesus’ feet and relax.  As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said.  But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"  "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." (Luke 10:38-42 NIV)  There is not a more believable and unremarkable account in the entire Bible than this.  Most of us have been incensed that all the work has fallen upon us while others get to play.  We have felt just like Martha and have even expressed our frustration about it.  But something happened that brought about a change in thinking with our friend.  It was the resurrection of her brother Lazarus.

In John 11 is the famous account of Jesus raising Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary from the dead.  At first, Martha was perturbed with Jesus for not coming when she and her sister sent for him when Lazarus was just sick.  When Jesus, in her mind, wasted his time on trivial matters and got to their house too late because Lazarus in the meantime had died, she chastised him for his cavalier attitude toward her brother’s dire circumstance.   But when Jesus raised him from the dead and Martha realized that not even death should dictate how she thought about things, and even more so how she thought about being left alone to serve everyone, she “changed her mind”.  Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him.  Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. (John 12:1-3 NIV)

Much is made of Mary pouring all that expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet and drying them with her hair but someone should notice Martha here too.  No longer is she complaining about Mary lounging when there was work to be done.  There was no more animosity about all the work she had to do on her own.  Her mind had changed: there was a conversion of her thinking!  The same could be said of the Apostle John who along with his brother James was furious over the lack of respect Jesus received in one of the Samaritan villages.  As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?"   But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village. (Luke 9:51-56 NIV)  It was never a small matter for Jesus to rebuke anyone and it would leave a lasting impression.  It clearly resulted in John “changing his mind” about the Samaritans because after Jesus crucified and risen left the disciples and they became apostles, sent out into the world, one of the very first things John did was join with Peter and begin an evangelistic tour throughout Samaria, preaching there the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages. (Acts 8:25b NIV)

It is one thing to feel badly about what you have done; another altogether to change your mind about your actions and alter your course.  One of the great questions facing the field of psychology is how to get people to change their minds about things…to change their minds sufficiently that it results in a different lifestyle.  All sorts of methods are used: punishment, rewards, talking, reviewing past personal history, mentoring, administering of drugs.  What everyone knows is that no matter how expensive and elaborate the intervention may be, unless a person’s mind is changed, behavior change is never long lasting.  For centuries however, Christian people have been changing their minds and dramatically altering their behavior as a result.  Not every person who names himself Christian has a changed mind; that is why so many so-called Christians look just like non-Christians…their morals are just as loose, their honesty is just as undependable and their addictions are just as resolute and harmful as those of non-Christian people.

What is needed is a real change of mind brought about by God’s kindness.  The Apostle Paul puts it this way.  …do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? (Romans 2:4 NIV)  What happened with Paul has been occurring for centuries.  As soon as Paul realized what a great kindness God had done for Him by dying on the Cross for his sins, the hateful and angry Paul embraced the very people he wanted dead.  Why?  Because Jesus Christ became a part of Paul and the Savior began to work His way into Paul’s thinking.  Literally, this verse states that God’s kindness leads you into a changed mind!  How does this happen?  Paul let the cat out of the bag in his closing remarks to the leaders of the church of Ephesus.  The NIV translates it this way.  I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.  (Acts 20:21 NIV)  The original Greek wording puts it this way, “having declared to Jews and Greeks the changed mind into God and faith into our Lord Jesus.”  What this means is that the changed mind which is immersed in God’s mind is always in conjunction with faith into the Lord Jesus.  Without developing and expanding faith into Jesus Christ, the mind never develops God’s mind; it just stays the same with only its own strength and understanding.  Faith in Christ though brings God into our thinking and with Him there, habits can be broken, memories that have haunted us can lose their power over us and we will have the kind of thinking we need to overcome bad behaviors and bad attitudes.

Faith in Christ is the most dramatic and powerful way to change both what we do and how we think.  Yet it is so simple to place your faith in Christ and gain God’s power in thinking.  You ask Christ to guide you and help you with everything you can think of as you go through your day.  When you read something in the Bible that insists you change what you are doing, then you believe Christ is right and you make the change.  When there is a choice between something you think is good and fair and what the Holy Spirit clearly says is not for you, then you accept God’s guidance and trust Christ in it.  Faith in Christ is not a once for all decision; it is a hundred little decisions each day which when added together give you God’s power to become the sort of person you want to be and God intends for you to be.

Thinking Twice

We are mistaken if we think repentance is feeling badly about what we have done.  The man or woman who wakes up demoralized by the resultant wreckage brought on by a drunken catastrophic act the night before is not repentant.  The teen, who angrily slams a fist into the dashboard after getting a speeding ticket, is not repentant.  The child who cries when punished by a parent for stealing is not repentant.  The New Testament take on repentance is resolute.  If there is repentance, holiness must be its outcome.  Otherwise, it is just wounded pride, disturbed ambition, natural pain response or petulance.  Judas was sorrowful over his betrayal of Jesus but never as far as we can tell repentant.  Korah and his family members may have screamed in panic when the ground began to swallow them but that did not make them repentant.  Repentance by definition requires a shift from an old way of being to operating from a converted will.  It was repentance that determined Zacchaeus’s course of action and Paul’s too.  The former paid his victims back four times what he stole and the later became the chief evangelist of the message he tried to destroy.  There may be a gloominess to the conviction of wrong but that is the shadow of repentance; transformation is the substance.  Biblical repentance requires a Savior and for repentance to take place, the Cross of Christ must work its way into the core of Sin.  Sin is the determination that I do as I see fit; the crucifying work of God kills that resolve and replaces it with the life of resurrected Christ working in and through my new personality.  It must never be the goal to stop doing wrong; rather we are to stop being wrong.  That can only happen as Christ lives in and through us.  When I see the Sin, then I am ready to be transformed by the power of the crucified Christ into a new personality who lives in the God who saves and sanctifies.  Repentance is the full turn into Christ for salvation and then in Him a resulting holiness.  If there is no holiness, there has been no repentance.

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you — even Jesus.   Acts 3:19-20 NIV

The Great Moment

The Great Moment of our "turn around" is never at the spot when everything changes but at the point at which we decide for God.  When a paralytic was carried to the home where Jesus was teaching, the turn around was not when the man arrived.  It wasn't when Jesus bent over the cripple and told him to walk.  It wasn't even those rapid fire nanoseconds when healing flashed through the paralytic's legs.  The turn around was when it was decided to go to the Lord for help.  Repentance is a turn around.  The cry to God for help is a turn around.  The lostness that is discovered in the heart is a turn around.  As we come to grips with the  realization that every hope we have must end with God and if the truth be known, starts with Him, we meet the turn around at our doorstep.  Faith is the turn around; it is the spot at which we go outside ourselves and the miserly universe and seek the treasure trove of God's grace.  This world is never enough and will never provide us with enough.  We are always left with an empty pang in our stomach when all we do is rely upon this world for what we long to have.  It is more than metaphoric that the prodigal realized where he should have lived all along when his stomach growled uncontrollably.  We seek the Father not to get something in the end but because He is the beginning and the end.  All joy and peace and love and contentment are found ultimately in Him and although we may mistake some carnal longing for its heavenly desire, even in our most lustful cravings, we have in them the opportunity to fill our stomach with the bread Jesus offered the crowd on the hillside.   His broken body and poured out blood come to us at the moment of our hunger pangs and if we are wise, we will feast on them.  Given the voracity of our appetite, the only way we can ever be filled is by turning to Christ and letting Him fully satisfy us.    When you decide to go after the Savior, He saves you beyond the saving  you sought.

Why are you downcast, O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. Psalm 42:5-6a NIV