ONE HEARTBEAT AWAY - PART 86

                                          ONE HEARTBEAT             AWAY

     PART 86


(copied from Mark Cahill's Book)

Chapter  8

The next step

Sin and Hell are married
unless repentance 
proclaims the divorce. 
Charles Spurgeon

Let's see where we stand. The evidence is 
overwhelming.  We have each broken the 
Commandments of Almighty God. I will be 
guilty on Judgment Day. You will be guilty 
on Judgment Day. 

So, what is the next step for you and me to 
get right with God?  There is a word that we 
do not use much in every day English 
anymore, and that's the word  "repent."  It represents an essential concept in human life, 
and the Bible mentions it more than one 
hundred times.

What does "repent" mean?  In English and
the Latin, from which much of it comes, "re"
means again and "pent"  means think again.
So, "re-pent"  means  "think again" or to
"rethink" something.  In the Hebrew of the 
Old Testament, the word  translated "repent"
means to "return,"  with the implication that 
it means "return to God."  In the Greek of the
New Testament,  the words translated  
"repent" mean  "regret" and "reconsider."

So when we repent,

we turn away from
our sins and toward      God, rethinking or
reconsidering what
we have been thinking
and doing in the light
of  what He wants us
to think and do. We are sorry for having 
offended Him, and we have an intention to 
change our ways, with His help. At the same 
time that we repent, we have an urge to cast 
away everything in our lives that invites us
to do the things we're repenting of, and we determine, with God's help, not to return to 
that mess. God likens a  return to sin, after repentance and receiving God's cleansing forgiveness, to returning to vomit or to a pig's 
sty:

But is happened to them according to the
true proverb, the dog is turned to his own 
vomit again; and the sow that was washed
to her wallowing in the mire.
(2 Peter  2:22)

Simultaneously we are placing our  faith and 
trust in  Jesus as our Saviour.  In other words,
repentance and faith go hand in hand. 
And this is how we are saved from being 
declared "guilty,"  : As we repent and believe, 
we become new creatures, born into God's
family, and we are no longer under the
condemnation of the Law.

next post  19th Feb