The Believer's Repentance

Our modern-day church places great emphasis on confession ... often at the expense of a proper understanding of repentance. While confession is mentioned only twice in the New Testament (NT) at James 5:16 and 1John 1:9, repentance is discussed much more. We must be careful not to confuse the two, because a believer can confess without repentance, while he cannot repent without confession.

It is entirely possible to feel remorse and confess sin, yet not change a thing. Repentance (sometimes known as contrition) means taking the responsibility for sin and committing to change a wrong action, attitude, or belief; this is absolutely essential for spiritual growth in our daily walk with the Lord. A true confession ... which means to agree with God's perspective concerning our sins ... goes together, hand in hand with repentance, because if we know God hates something we are doing, saying, or thinking, then we will stop doing what we are doing, saying, or thinking.

By means of confession and contrition, the believer will accept his responsibility for ridding his life of all sin through the power of the Holy Spirit and the free gift of grace. Jesus' available forgiveness shouldn't be treated as a "get out of jail free" car from a Monopoly game. We find that we must do much more than casually brush things aside and say, "Lord, I've sinned again. I'm sorry." Because while this is a great first step, to triumph over habitual sin, we must go a little further and choose to resist temptation and obey our God, as a conscious choice. Satan will keep pestering us, never forget that, and we may find ourselves failing again but if we are sincere and confess with a heart filled with remorse, we can confess and repent until our heavenly Father gives us victory over Satan. And He will do that as soon as the time is right.

Repentance is more than just feeling sorry or claiming weakness in the face of temptation. It's a condition wherein our spirits understand our Lord's grief over sin, grieves with Him, and then commits to changing a behavior, or behaviors, in order to please Him.

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I have an idea for a writing project that's been kind of floating around inside my head all week and I'm trying to get it to stabilize so I can take a good look at it and put it to paper if I think it's doable. What I want to do is find a good way to teach the basics to the brand new child of God, one who's made the commitment, been baptized, and now awaits direction. Most often we concentrate so hard on getting that commitment and getting that person baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that we miss a great opportunity so get the newborn off to a good start in his or her walk with the Lord. Without that support, that nurturing, it is easy for the newborn babe to fail and fall short of a thriving relationship with their God. We all agree that something must be done to hold this new believer up to the Lord in prayer and teaching. Those of us who have been in the faith for many years owe it to the new believer to comfort and coach her or him along on their road to victory. I want something that will bridge the gap that lies open between conversion and baptism, and a mature living faith we all seek. Something that goes from the basics in this wondrous new existence to that of mature and settled Christians. Some people accept Christ and have absolutely no idea what comes next. Some of the things they need to know are so basic that we don't even think about it usually. Something as simple as the different parts of their own Bible. Do they understand the Old and New Testaments? Do they even know what the testaments are? Can they give a definition to the very word? Anyway, I've had these thoughts floating around inside my head for a few weeks now and I think I want to try to do something about them. I want to do something that will coach and support a new believer. Does that sound like a viable endeavor to you, my readers? I could use input here so if you read this and don't usually comment, could you give me your opinions in a comment? Or email them to me at maharvey2006@comcast.net. This will be a lot of work to bring this about and I will get started on the project just as soon as I get a few opinions and have the chance to do a little more research on my own. As soon as I'm sure this is the will of God, I will move forward with my plans.

No plans for the day except to run out to the store for a few necessities. I want a nice, delicious, ripe watermelon. Doesn't that sound really good? I love watermelons and I haven't had a good one in a long, long time. Maybe I will check out the prices at the store when I go.

M and I watched a really sweet movie last night. (I can't remember the name of it but it was a western. It has probably been 10 years since I'd watched a western movie.) It was on the Hallmark channel. We didn't even know we had the Hallmark channel until a couple weeks ago. I think we're going to be spending a lot of time over there. It was so nice to watch an entire full-length movie and not hear a single swear word. That was so nice. I don't consider myself to be a prude; I'm just someone who doesn't swear and doesn't want to have to listen to other people swear in the privacy of my own living room. I don't want that filth in my house. And I'm really tired of COPS reruns and just about everything else. There just isn't any good TV these days and I'm all for the Hallmark channel or turning off the TV. (I've got to where I do that a lot lately. It probably drives M crazy that I keep turning it off, but I just get tired of the noise and any time he's not in the room I will turn it off.)

Pretty is still with us and appears to be feeling a little better. Wouldn't it be just great if she'd beat this thing? We've been expecting to get up and find her dead one of these mornings but she seems to be getting better as the days go by. I wish there were something I could do for her.

[Added on edit.]
I just finished burying Pretty. I think I saw the behavior in her that I wanted to see this morning. I think I saw what hurt me less. She obviously wasn't a little better this morning. Last I saw her she was in the dining room and when I finished this blog I was going to feed her her extra feeding I've been giving her lately, but first I wanted to run out to the store before it got any hotter. When I came home M met me at the door and told me that she had died in his bathroom. Well, it's over. Thank you, Jesus. She's not suffering any longer and that had been my prayer the last two days, that God would just let her die quickly and without pain. He is so faithful to us, answering our prayers when we come to him with our aches and pains and sorrows. Her grave is on the shallow side because of the layer of hard pan we have in the ground up here in the foothills but I dug it as deep as I could possibly go and then put the earth back over her and piled several large rocks over the grave. Michael wasn't able to help me dig but he took the pry pole (I don't know what else to call it) and broke up the hard pan a little for me to shovel and between the two of us we got the job done. I so much wanted her to pull out of this but I guess her little heart just gave out. I'm sitting here crying but I'm glad it's over for her. I'm glad she's in a world now where there is no pain and no struggling for breath. I just wish I'd been with her when she died. She shouldn't have died alone. Nothing deserves to die alone. I think I'm going to go take a shower and wash all the sweat off me from digging the grave. That hard pan is as hard as cement and it doesn't give much at all when you try to shovel it. But I think we got her deep enough. Then I came in and mopped the bathroom where she had expired and washed my hands really good. But I'm up for a shower now. I'm glad her suffering is over. I just feel like I let her down because I couldn't take her to the vet. Sometimes I really, truly do hate being poor even though I know I have been called to a life of poverty, but in my flesh I cry out and I don't like it when it's something like this. God is so faithful. He took her so she wouldn't suffer and He's giving me peace about it. There are differing philosophies and beliefs as to what happens when a beloved pet dies. I'm not sure which I believe and it's not all that important for me to know. What I do most definitely believe is that God sees my pain and because He loves me He doesn't want me to continue to hurt any more than I absolutely have to, so He does what He can to make things easier for me. She could have languished for weeks, but God, in His great mercy, interceded on my behalf and caused her to die quickly. Rest in peace, Pretty girl!

I went to my doctor yesterday afternoon to get reestablished with him (he had to take a year off from his practice and tend to some private affairs) and found out that he won't take me back. I've waited over a year to get back to him. I haven't tried to find another doctor to care for me with the exceptions of getting my meds refilled when I need them. I guess I will continue the way things are and go to the clinics from here on out if I get sick. Just getting my meds runs me $50 every 3 months and I don't know how long this doctor will agree to refill my prescriptions since he only took me on while "my" doctor was away. He's been my doctor for the past 15 years and I have been deathly ill a few times during that time and I'd sure like to figure out a way of keeping him but it was made very plain to me yesterday that that's not possible any longer. So here I am without a doctor. I will have to trust God to keep me well.

I think it's going to be hotter today. Yesterday we had 99 degrees but today feels like we'll probably hit103 or 104. We've got the cooler running so we should stay comfortable. The problem we were having were the hot nights. When it's too hot to sleep with just a sheet over you, it's too hot. Although I did wake up under the sheet this morning so I must have pulled it up sometime during the night. You know we're mid July already. Before we know it it's going to be Fall again. And then Christmas. Where does the time go???

This isn't much of a blog today, but I need to run my errands so until the next time...