Begin Here, Remain Here (3)

“And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment…” John 16.8

It begins with God
As we have seen, repentance is a work of grace. That means it begins with God, is accomplished by God, and bears the fruit God intends. It also means that it is a work of God’s love and shepherding care, and so we should welcome it and seek it as often as we may.

Whenever God is at work in our lives, it’s a good thing. We should rejoice to repent, therefore, as this is a sure indication that God is at work within us, willing and doing of His good pleasure to transform us increasingly into the image of Jesus Christ (Phil. 2.13; 2 Cor. 3.12-18).

Repentance is a work of God, and more specifically, of the Holy Spirit. Certainly we are commanded to repent, and to practice repentance from our sins every day of our lives. But we cannot do this apart from the work of God’s Spirit in our lives. What does this mean? How does God’s Spirit work to bring us to repentance?

The Law of God
First, the Spirit must teach us the Law of God (Ezek. 36.26, 27). Unless the Spirit opens our hearts and minds to the truth of God’s Law, we’ll never be able to appreciate the standards of holiness and justice God has declared for us, or the depths of our sin and need for His grace and power. This means we must enroll in the Spirit’s classroom and make reading, meditating on, and studying God’s Law an important part of our daily spiritual life.

The Law of God – the first five books of Scripture including the commandments and statutes of God – begin the Word of God, and inform and shape it throughout. The Word of God, in turn, teaches us how to read and understand the Law of God, so that love for God and neighbor flow through us by the Spirit (Matt. 22.34-40; Jn. 7.37-39).

The more we turn to the Law of God, meditating on it day by day (Ps. 1), the greater will be the likelihood that the Spirit will use the Law to reveal some heretofore unacknowledged sin in our lives. We gain the mind of the Spirit for life in the Spirit as we read and meditate in the Law of God (Rom. 8.5-9). For the Spirit to do His work of teaching us the Law of God, we must position ourselves before it regularly.

Conviction
In such a situation, the Spirit, having shown us the Law of God, can convict us of any situations, sentiments, thoughts, or practices in our lives that are contrary to the holiness of the Law of God. We will know that we have been convicted of something when, like a defendant hearing the judge read the jury’s guilty verdict, we are suddenly hot with shame, embarrassment, fear, and dread. We’ve been discovered. The facts are known, and we are found wanting before the Lord.

The feeling of conviction is unpleasant and unmistakable, and the Spirit of God has been given precisely to bring us to this point. It should bring us to a point of godly sorrow.

Immediately, however, the Spirit takes up another work in us. He begins to make us willing to do what God wants, to live as He desires, to make ourselves pleasing to Him Who loved us so much that He gave His Son for our redemption (Phil. 2.13).

We cannot will ourselves to desire God’s way; only the Spirit can do that in us, and He will only do it when, having convicted us of our sins, He sees that, in the depths of our souls, we are grieving and ready to follow a different path.

Declaring repentance
Finally, the Spirit of God enables us to declare our repentance to God. This involves, first, confessing our sin – agreeing, as it were, with the Spirit concerning what He has made known to us about our transgressions of God’s Law. If we say that we have no sin, we’re deceiving ourselves and making God a liar (1 Jn. 1.8-10). With confession then must come a declaration of repentance: “Lord, I repent of this sin, and I desire to follow a different path.” Confession and repentance are acts of obedient faith, wrought within us by the Spirit of God. As often as sin is discovered within us, confession and repentance are in order.

Without repentance there is no full faith; in a believer, where there is no repentance, there will be no growth in the good works that characterize true repentance. And without that growth – growth in holiness – we may not expect to see the Lord, to know the righteousness, peace, and joy of His Kingdom, or to be a blessing to others as God intends.

Repentance is a work of grace, a work of God’s Spirit. We must establish ourselves in the conditions where repentance can occur, and seek the Spirit of God to work within us that conviction, grief, willingness, and resolve that lead us through repentance into the fuller enjoyment of our full faith walk with Jesus Christ.

For reflection
1.  Are you enrolled in the Spirit’s school of conviction and repentance?

2.  How do you experience repentance? What feelings to you associate with it?

3.  Repentance issues in good works characteristic of repentance. How do you experience this?

Next steps: Repentance requires that we wait on the Lord in prayer (Ps. 139.23, 24). Begin adding time for this in your prayers each day.

T. M. Moore

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This week’s ReVision study is Part 3 of a 10-part series, “Full Faith.” You can download “Begin Here, Remain Here” as a free PDF, prepared for personal or group study. Simply click here.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.