“Lord Jesus, we surrender to You as the Lord of our lives. Forgive us Lord that we do not give lordship to You, easily. Lord Jesus, You are Lord and Master of our lives. We are Your Doulos. In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen.”
As Peter brings the conclusion to his message to the Jews, he begins with repentance. The Jews had to repent and surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ over their lives.
Acts 2:38-40 Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (39) For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” (40) And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.”
The first place to begin in our relationship with Jesus is for Him to be the Lord of our lives. As we have seen, repentance and conversion go hand in hand. It is when we accept Jesus as our Lord that we are converted. Without Jesus, as our Lord, there is no conversion at all.
Repentance and conversion must be evidenced by works. This is not about a sense of remorse and guilt. There must be a turnaround and submission to the lordship of Christ over our lives, in the specific areas where we had been ruling our lives. There must be works befitting repentance in us.
Acts 26:20 but declared first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance.
These works of repentance are by God’s grace. He enables us to put into action the works of repentance. Ephesians 2:8-10 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, (9) not of works, lest anyone should boast. (10) For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Therefore, Christian life is a life of the manifestation of God’s grace in our lives in the works of repentance and surrender to the lordship of Christ.
The Jews needed to repent in a specific area in their lives, which was pursuing the law of righteousness by works. They were meticulous in keeping the law of Moses to the letter. They had come to the point of considering themselves righteous before God, by the keeping of the law.
Romans 9:31-32 but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. (32) Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.
The Jews needed to come to the place of submitting to Jesus as Lord and placing their faith in Him, for by the keeping of the law no one can be made righteous before God. Galatians 2:16 knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified. Acts 13:39 and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.
This was the specific place, where the Jews had to repent and place their faith in Jesus by surrendering to Him as Lord.
In the gospels, we read that the Jews were threatening Jesus and they challenged His authority for His teaching. The Lord was not intimidated by them at all but He was longing for them to repent and turn to Him. He saw the hardness of their hearts. He gave them a parable to understand repentance.
Matthew 21:28-32 “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ (29) He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went*. (30) Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. (31) Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said to Him, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. (32) For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but tax collectors and harlots believed him; and *when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe him.
The Lord longed for the Jews to have a change of heart, regret their hardheartedness, repent and place their faith in Him. Praise God.
What did not take place with the Lord Jesus, took place through the preaching of Peter and the Apostles.
We are sent into the world to bring conviction to the hearts of people, so that they would regret their callousness, turn, and place their faith in Jesus. This is the work of the Holy Spirit through us.