Sunday: Repentance: God’s Gift
During the weeks before Pentecost, the disciples earnestly sought God in prayer.
Image © Lars Justinen from GoodSalt.com
Acts 1:14 says that they were in “one accord in prayer and supplication.” This experience of “one accord” reveals a strong unity and harmony among Christ’s followers that would not have been possible without repentance and confession. Prayer and confession prepared them for what was going to come.
Read Acts 5:30-32. What important points can we take from what Peter said here?
Peter makes two critical points. First, repentance is a gift. As we open our hearts to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, Jesus gives us the gift of repentance. Secondly, the disciples themselves were witnesses in their own lives of the reality of repentance. They not only preached repentance, they experienced it.
“As the disciples waited for the fulfillment of the promise, they humbled their hearts in true repentance and confessed their unbelief. As they called to remembrance the words that Christ had spoken to them before His death they understood more fully their meaning. . . . As they meditated upon His pure, holy life they felt that no toil would be too hard, no sacrifice too great, if only they could bear witness in their lives to the loveliness of Christ’s character.”-Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 36.
Repentance and confession are common themes throughout Acts (Acts 17:30-31; 26:19-20). It is “the goodness of God” that leads us to repentance; it is the convicting power of the Holy Spirit that brings us to the realization of our need for a sin pardoning Savior. At the same time, we must remember that the Holy Spirit does not fill unrepentant hearts (Rom. 2:8; Acts 2:38-39; 3:19). The Holy Spirit fills hearts emptied of selfish ambition, of the desire for personal recognition, and of the drive for personal glory.
Why is it so difficult to acknowledge our sins and repent of them? Why is it so easy to let self get in the way of true repentance?
(36)
A call to repentance Romans 8 vs28, and we know that God causes
everything to work together for the good of those
who love God and are called according to his
purpose for them', but (James 4 vs 7-8 ,
says ,submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the
devil, and he will flee from you, draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you cleanse your hands,
ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double
minded",, lets draw to God my freands because
without him we are nothing, lets repent , lets open
our hearts for him, Amen
God wants us to repent and realize that nothing we can do without Him can save us. We need to rely on What Jesus has done for us and ask Him to help us to change into His likeness.
It is difficult to acknowledge our sins, because we enjoy committing sin. We can't truly confess and repent, because we haven't grown to hate sin. When sin become bitter to us, then and only then will we grow to hate it. We are our worst enemy. God has laid the plan of salvation out for us, but He will not force us to confess nor will He force us to repent for sins committed. May God help us to overcome sin while there's still time.
Our focus is not on God, His Kingdom and His love. Instead, we try unsuccessfully to defend ourselves and "save face" because of selfish pride. Pride is a deceptive and dangerous enemy to our very lives. We must run from it to Jesus so we can be free!
I seem to be getting a little bit confused here; first the lesson says according to Acts 5:30-32;repentance is a gift, but then the last paragraph says the Holy spirit does not fill unrepentant hearts. Isn't that's the work of the Holy Spirit to convict us, to help us repent? Are we not supposed to pray the Holy spirit helps us to repent; bearing in mind confession and repentance are two different things. One can confess his sins but not yet fully repentant. So which is which? Don't we need the Holy spirit in order to fully repent?
I think Jackie stated it well. Pride, like other sins, blocks us from receiving God's gifts (including the gift of repentance).
Last sentence in Sunday lesson: "The Holy Spirit fills hearts emptied of selfish ambition, of the desire for personal recognition, and of the desire for personal glory."
This is another way to say that the Holy Spirit cannot fill our hearts with repentance until our hearts are emptied of pride. And only Jesus can do that for us (“…without Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5)
"Christ is the source of every right impulse... No soul can repent without the grace of Christ... for if they could repent without coming to Christ, they could be saved without Christ." EGW (Review and Herald, April 1, 1890).
I've seen that all forms of media when used for the wrong reasons can be destructive. For it gives us plenty of reasons to sin. These platforms repeat sin over and over again to the level that we become accepting on it. I just pray to God that we can find better things to do with our time.
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The difficulty to acknowledge our sins and repent of them lies in lack of obedience to the word of God and the Holy Spirit.
This lack of obedience is a product of an unconverted heart. Most baptisms and confessions and repentance that we display are only outward to please the crowds.
A true conversion will lead to a true and genuine obedience that will in turn lead to an acknowledgment and repentance of sin.
Help us Lord Jesus.