“Thank You, Lord Jesus, for this step of repentance in coming back to You. Lord, have mercy on us that we want a relationship with You, without first repenting. Lord, teach us to have a repentant heart. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.”
Peter’s message, which was an outcome of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, had a great impact on his audience. They were repentant and sought to know what they needed to do.
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.”
This is where Peter is tying up his message and bringing closure. This is a part that we must all be conscious to do as we share the Gospel with people. We must ensure to bring a conclusion.
As Peter and all the apostles were bringing about this powerful end to their message to this Jewish audience, they were fulfilling the task that the Lord had entrusted to them. Luke 24:46-49 Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, (47) and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem*. (48) And you are witnesses of these things. (49) Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
It is indeed a privilege as well as a fulfilment for us to accomplish the task that the Lord has entrusted to us.
Let us get a deeper understanding of repentance. Acts 3:19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,
Repentance goes along with conversion. The Lord explained conversion to His disciples as they were squabbling over who was the greatest amongst them in the kingdom of heaven.
The Lord placed a little child in their midst and said, Matthew 18:3 and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
What is conversion? Conversion must be learnt from the child. Children have a very special gift and that is the gift of trust. A child trusts her caregiver, naturally. As we grow older, we start losing the gift of trust. We experience distrust and we become guarded. We build our own system and we become self-centred.
To come to God there is the need to deny ourselves and say, “I’m now willing to place my trust in God”. This is conversion. Conversion is closely associated with repentance. We have been trusting ourselves till a particular point in life, but when we come to Jesus, there is this need to repent and be converted.
Jesus came, preaching the Gospel of the kingdom of God. Mark 1:14-15 Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, (15) and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
The Lord said that the Gospel is of His kingdom. There needs to be the step of repentance to believe in the Gospel. What do we understand? We have set up a kingdom in our hearts, where we rule our lives. We live according to our will. Sin, the world and the devil have sway over us and our will has become a prisoner to these.
Repentance is to turn our backs to all of these, sin, the world, and the devil and say, “I now come under the rule and authority of God. I come into His kingdom.”. This is the understanding of coming into a relationship with Jesus. We must renounce and relinquish all allegiance to any other rule, including the rule of ourselves, in our lives
We may say that we want to give our lives to God but in our hearts, we have set up other idols. Idolatry is of the heart. Acts 17:28-30 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ (29) Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. (30) Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,
The idol that most often occupies our hearts is the idol of materialism. Money has the frightening capacity to replace God in our lives. Therefore, the love of money is a root of all evil. I Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
Repentance is to let go of our trust in money and place our trust in God.
We must examine our hearts to know if we have truly repented and been converted.