Skimming Past Repentance

It's a pretty common occurrence in our home.  We will tell our children to do something and find a few moments later that the something has not been done.  In response, I usually ask them, "Why didn't you do what I told you to do?"  More times than not, they will avoid answering my question altogether and immediately begin doing the something.  

My tendency is to let this fly.  I mean, why not?  The ultimate goal is accomplished - they did the something right?  Wrong.  The goal is not to merely get the something done, but to get it done from an obedient heart.  We want to raise Christians not Pharisees.  When we simply allow our children to flip the proverbial switch from disobedience to obedience, we fail to teach them the most distinguishing and significant practice of the Christian life - repentance and faith.

We shouldn't fool ourselves though.  We do this too.  And it would not be completely incorrect to say that our children have learned it from us.  In our typical routine we listen to sermons, read books as well as our Bible.  After learning that we have been living some part of our lives wrongly, we make a decision to change.  It's pretty simple.  I was doing this wrongly, I need to do it rightly.  I resolve now to do it rightly.  Case closed.

While this recipe of living may produce a behaving community, it really produces a very superficial and critical pack of religious wolves.

Living wrongly may affect us, but it does not affect only us.  As Christians under the Lordship of Christ, our lives are deeply personal and moral.  Sin always affects someone else, especially our personal God.  Switching the obedient switch is like telling your spouse after you have committed adultery, "It's okay babe, I have listened to a sermon.  I won't do that anymore.  Let's hug."  All this does is communicate that we could care less about everyone but ourselves.  Everyone else is valueless - they don't matter.

When we slow down, however, to consider how we have deeply offended someone by our disobedient behavior, we communicate that they matter - that their life is valuable.  Before we take an obedient step with our feet, we must make a confessional statement with our lips.  When we repent, we acknowledge all of who they are and all of who we are.  We are not religious success stories, we are fallen sinners.

This repentance produces both deep humility and deep faith.  Taking the time to mourn our sin provides the context for understanding that our righteousness is as filthy rags.  This repentance forces us to look beyond ourselves for righteousness.  It causes us to reach for the One who is perfect in obedience and who alone can repair our fallenness.  Clinging to Christ this way is the way of repentance and faith.

When we skim past repentance we communicate that we are the ones that matter and that we can obtain righteousness in our own strength.  But when we repent and embrace Christ, we communicate that He is the One that matters and that we desperately need His strength to do anything at all.