TRUE REPENTANCE!

TRUE REPENTANCE!

Heb 12:17

17 For ye know how that afterward, when he [Esau] would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

Acts 5:30-31

30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.

31 Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.

          Esau came home from the hunt exhausted and hungry. He was a man’s man and his brother was talented in the kitchen. A wonderful aroma filled his nostrils and short-circuited his brain. He traded is birthright for a bowl of bean soup! He would one day regret it.

          How many of us, in the passion of the moment, have traded something permanent for something temporary; something irreplaceable for something transient? Afterward, when the bridge is burnt, we seek passage back to where we were but it is too late. Esau sought but found no place of repentance because he desired only to change his circumstances and not his heart.

True – biblical – repentance has all these elements:

1.  A true mourning for sin and an earnest desire to be delivered from it.

2. It is a consequence of saving faith.

3. Is not produced by fear of punishment by God but love.

4. Is not short lived but permanent change.

5. Behavior is changed because the heart is transformed.

Isa 55:6-7

6 Seek ye the Lord  while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:

7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord , and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Change my heart, O God. Help me find passage across bridges that I have burned. AMEN