Today I want to share Rick Renner's "Sparkling Gems from the Greek". It's a little longer, but very important!
Repent!
Remember therefore from whence
thou art fallen, and repent….— Revelation 2:5
In this modern age, people want
to be comforted and told that everything is going to be all right. But the
truth is, some things are not going to be all right in people’s lives
unless they make a decision to repent and change. In those cases, it
is sometimes up to us to love people enough to be honest with them, no matter
how painful it is for them to hear the truth. This type of spiritual pain is
good for people to experience because it makes them aware that things are not
right between them and God.
You may remember from the March
18 Sparkling Gem that the word “repent” is the Greek word metanoeo and
means a change of mind, repentance, or conversion. The
Septuagint used this word in the Old Testament to depict the prophet’s call to
the people to turn or to change their attitudes and ways.
In the New Testament, metanoeo,
or “repent,” has the same meaning, but the force is much stronger. It demands a
decision to completely change or to entirely turn around in the
way one is thinking, believing, or living. This word “repent” gives the
image of a person changing from top to bottom — a total transformation wholly
affecting every part of a person’s life.
Because Christ loves us, He often
confronts us with painful truths about ourselves and then calls on us to
repent. At that point, we must make the decision to turn from the sin in our
lives and remove every action, attitude, or relationship from our lives that
grieves Him and hurts us.
In Revelation 2:5, Jesus didn’t
mitigate the truth; rather, He had a straightforward confrontation with the
Ephesians as He told them that they had allowed their relationship with Him to
slip. This congregation was viewed as the model church — an example for
churches throughout other parts of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, Jesus said
its members and leadership were “fallen” compared to what they had experienced
earlier with Him. The passionate, on-fire relationship they had once enjoyed
with Jesus had slipped away as they became lost in the sophistication of
ministry.
When the pastor of the Ephesian
church heard this message from Christ, it must have pained his heart; yet it
was his responsibility as the messenger of the church to pass this
message on to the entire congregation. One can only imagine the pain these
early believers felt when they heard Jesus’ words to them, urging them to put
everything on pause and to take the time to remember the intimate relationship
they had enjoyed with Him in the past. It must have profoundly affected the
Ephesian congregation when they compared their passionate love for Christ in
those earlier days to the body of believers they had become — spiritually
sophisticated but distant from the Lord in their hearts.
Psalm 51 provides a vivid example
of genuine repentance and is, in fact, called David’s psalm of repentance. In
this psalm, one can sense not only David’s sorrow but also his decision
to change. In verse 17, he wrote about a heart that is broken over sin: “The
sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God,
thou wilt not despise.” The word “contrite” is the Old Testament expression for
someone who is genuinely repentant for what he has done. This is a person who
has recognized his wrong, decided to change, and now desires to live uprightly.
This was the spiritual condition
to which Christ was calling the congregation of Ephesus. He confronted them
with the truth: that although they had continued to serve Jesus and to
faithfully go through the motions, little by little their spiritual zeal had
begun to wane. Then He compelled them to acknowledge — just as He compels us
today — that they needed to repent and return to Him, thereby
rekindling the fire that once burned so brightly in their hearts.
When necessary, Christ calls
entire churches to repent. Besides the churches in the book of Revelation,
another scriptural example is the Corinthian congregation, to whom Paul brought
correction for their many acts of carnality. When the Corinthian believers
received Paul’s first letter and recognized that God was speaking to them
through the apostle, they were moved with fear to purge themselves of the sin
in their midst that had grieved the Holy Spirit. This willingness to change was
the proof that true repentance had occurred. The indisputable
transformation that occurred in the Corinthian church was sufficient evidence
for Paul to declare in his second letter that they had cleared themselves in
the matters where they had previously been wrong (see 2 Corinthians
7:9-11). God’s goal in confronting His Church is always to produce cleansing,
transformation, and restoration.
Today Jesus is still crying out
for the Church to repent of worldliness and carnality. As is true in each
generation, today we have a choice: to harden our hearts and turn a deaf ear to
the Holy Spirit, or to allow Him to deal deeply with us and produce genuine
repentance in our hearts and souls. Although Christ is always ready to
transform His Church, no transformation can occur unless we are willing to hear
what His Spirit is saying to us. And once we do hear that divine message, we
must be willing to respond with humble obedience, just as the Corinthian church
did.
This was the case for the church
at Ephesus. Jesus was calling this congregation to recognize their fallen state
and to take visible steps to demonstrate that they were sincere about restoring
their passion for Him. But how does a fallen church, or a wayward believer,
restore that fire that once burned so brightly? That is exactly what we will
discuss in tomorrow’s Sparkling Gem!
Though JESUS was speaking to Churches in Revelation 2, churches are made up of people! WE are the CHURCH of JESUS CHRIST! It is up to us to represent HIM in all of His glory! KNOW the TRUTH, SPEAK the TRUTH, OBEY the TRUTH, and watch as the Author of TRUTH confirms His TRUTH with signs, wonders and miracles! AMEN! Here is Hillsong UNITED with a very good older song called "One Way":Shalom in Him!
