Repentance

Have you ever wondered if you had "done it right" when you trusted in Christ for your eternal salvation? I will admit to having had doubts and fears to run through my mind over this issue in the past. But a friend and brother in Christ as well as a fellow blogger has helped me see that faith doesn't look inward at itself, but upward to Christ and beholds Him. In sharing the Gospel with someone, a certain person seemed to have trusted Christ, but later he began to have these doubts and fears as to whether he had "done it right" or not. The main issue in his mind was that this was eternity in question, and it better be right! He was right in that he understood the importance of the matter, but there was something that he was missing, something very important. This person understood that God loved him. He understood that God had done everything to make His gift of salvation available to him, and anyone that wanted it, but the one thing he was terribly unsure of was how to get it. I asked him if he wanted to be saved, and he desperately did. I asked him to think logically about it for a moment, and he did. I said that God being God, knew that he wanted desperately to be saved. Also, I asked him if it made any sense that the God of love who had gone to the great lengths He had to make salvation available to him, would then say, "I'm sorry, but you didn't do it just right when you received My gift of salvation, so you can't have it." He agrees that it would make no sense whatsoever, and it seemed that it was at this point that the "light" came on and he rejoiced in his salvation! The beautiful thing is that God has done it all, and therefore it is out of our hands, except to just accept that it is ours through Christ. I offer that this is true Biblical repentance unto salvation. This dear soul changed his mind, realized who God really was, he already knew he was a sinner and needed Christ, and now he had received what Christ had already done for him! Folks, this is really Good News! God bless you all.

God is so Good.

As I was thinking a moment ago, it just hit me that if we as believers sense that we have drifted from the Lord through neglect, or even outright sin in our lives, we don't have to seek to do some type of penance, or hope that we can be eloquent enough in a prayer to turn God's head back toward us. In fact, we don't have to necessarily do anything. I remember reading a great sermon by a great Bible preacher of the past, Dr. John R. Rice, entitled simply The Backslider. In that message, he had about 5 points, including such great topics as Is the Backslider saved or lost, What is a Backslider, & the like. Yet the very best part is the last which is simply How to Get Back into Full Fellowship with God or something on that order. It was the shortest & simplest portion of that powerful sermon, & it conveyed all that the believer needs to do to return to fellowship with God. Dr. Rice said that the believer only needs to return in his heart to the Lord & cry out in the genuine sorrow of his heart that he wants back in fellowship & like the Prodigal Son who just took that first step back toward Home, the Father does the rest!
During this Thanksgiving Season, I believe one of the greatest blessings that we, believer or unbeliever, has for which to thank God is that, as a newfound blogger said, God is for us! We don't have to somehow make God aware of our desire to turn toward Him, we need to just do it! If we're wanting to come to Him, or return to fellowship with Him as believers, we can know without a doubt that it is only because our gracious, loving God has first been seeking us!
The lost person can believe in Christ as Savior & we believers can turn back to our Savior in just an instant of time! So, I was just thinking, God is so good! What do you think? May the Lord bless you all!