Archives For Repentance

Your Motivation for Living for God

Before I had a family, I had a different car—a black Firebird with T-tops.

Sitting behind those eight cylinders, I could go from zero to too-fast in about five seconds (but, of course, I never did).

Your Motivation for Living for God Your Motivation for Living for God

(Photo by Photodune)

After Cathy and I had our first daughter, I decided I needed a family vehicle. Car seats don’t fit in Firebirds.

So I sold the car.

A few months later, I found a spare set of keys to the Firebird, and I thought: I need to get these to the new owner. Even though I could have kept the keys (as insignificant as it seemed), they really weren’t mine to keep. I had sold them, in a sense, when I sold the car.

Living for God is like finding a spare set of keys to a car you no longer own.

In fact, you have a whole lot of keys that aren’t yours.

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Good Friday Gives Your Shame a Choice

Good Friday wasn’t so good for Judas.

The guilt-ridden betrayer of Jesus hung himself and then fell headlong, spilling his innards. Hence, the residents later named the place where it happened, “Akeldema,” or “Field of Blood” (Acts 1:18-19).

Judas may have chosen this place to die for a specific reason.

Monastery of St Onuphrius traditional Akeldema entrance tb091306430 Good Friday Gives Your Shame a Choice

(Photo: Monastery of St Onuphrius, traditional Akeldema, courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

Today, the peaceful Monastery of St. Onuphrius at Akeldema offers no clue to the fact that Judas killed himself at that site—nor does it reveal the Hinnom Valley’s sordid history.

  • Horrific atrocities occurred in the Hinnom Valley during the days of Judah’s kings (2 Chronicles 33:6; Jeremiah 7:31).
  • In Jesus’ day, the city dump lay in this gorge. Some suggest that fires continually burned the trash, and so Jesus used the smoldering landfill of Gehenna as an illustration of hell’s eternal flames (Mark 9:43).

Because Jesus compared the Hinnom Valley to hell, one has to wonder if this is the reason Judas’s desperate regret led him to end his life in this ravine.

Like Judas, you have failed. But Judas’ shame doesn’t have to be yours.

Good Friday gives your shame a choice.

Peter shows us why.

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Ash Wednesday—Applied Every Day

Ash Wednesday seems like an odd tradition to those who don’t observe it.

Think about it. The ashes of burned crosses from the previous year’s Palm Sunday are saved. Then, a clergyman or layman rubs the cinders on the foreheads of “the faithful” in the shape of a cross.

(Speaking of ashes, the holiday also represents “National No Smoking Day” in Ireland.)

Ash Wednesday . . . Every Day Ash Wednesday—Applied Every Day

(Photo: By Oxh973, Jennifer Balaska. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

So what’s the point of wearing ashes on Ash Wednesday? The cinder residue is reminiscent of the biblical act of repenting “in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6).

Many Christians have no connection with Ash Wednesday’s tradition.

But we all have need of what it represents.

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Pools of Bethesda—God’s Kindness and Our Repentance

Very few people are drawn to God by intimidation.

Instead, the Lord urges us to come to Him by revealing the kindness of His mercy.

Pools of Bethesda and Crusader chapel tb011612845 Pools of Bethesda—God’s Kindness and Our Repentance

(Photo: Pools of Bethesda and Crusader chapel, courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

Once we comprehend the depth of our imperfections, and the futility of our own efforts to remove them, we are in a position to respond to God’s kindness.

Jesus revealed this simple truth one day in Jerusalem with an act of mercy at the Pools of Bethesda.

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Looking for God in the Wrong Places

The world makes promises it can’t keep.

It says the reason we’re unhappy is that we just haven’t found the right whatever yet.

The right spouse, the right hairdo, the right salary, the right entertainment system, the right church, the right pastor, the right Bible, the right seminar, ad infinitum . . . ad nauseam.

58676487 w Looking for God in the Wrong Places

(Photo: Design Pics, via Vivozoom)

You don’t have to be without Jesus to fall into the trap. Even those of us who do believe in Jesus can chase those shadows.

But God won’t let us hide from reality. He loves us too much.

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Chorazin—Sitting in the Seat but Missing the Message

From a distance, the place seems as if it’s hiding. I don’t blame it for trying.

After all, it remains one of the three cities in Galilee that Jesus rebuked for failing to respond to His message and miracles.

Chorazin panorama from west tb041103211 Chorazin—Sitting in the Seat but Missing the Message

(Photo: Chorazin’s ruins hide at center left. Courtesy of Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

The basalt ruins of Chorazin appear little more than a pile of rocks among so many thousands of others. Clumps of grass and volcanic rock offer a variegated green and gray to the hillside above the Sea of Galilee.

Unless you look carefully, you may not even see the city.

But Jesus saw it. So should we.

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The Tabernacle at Shiloh—A Promise, Person, Place & Parable

Local schoolchildren ate their lunches across the olive grove from my wife and me.

Like the kids, we came on a field trip to explore ancient Shiloh. Although our lunch was hardly a feast, it reminded me of the reasons the young nation of Israel initially came to this site. They came to worship at the annual feasts before the Tabernacle at Shiloh.

Shiloh area of tabernacle tb051808076 The Tabernacle at Shiloh—A Promise, Person, Place & Parable

(Photo: Area of the Tabernacle at Shiloh. Courtesy of Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

Ask most Americans where Shiloh is, and you’ll likely get a blank stare.

  • Historians may point to a Civil War battle in Hardin County, Tennessee.
  • Music buffs may start singing the chorus to a Neil Diamond song.

But question someone who knows his or her Bible, and Shiloh means something far more significant.

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4 Strategies to Fight the Tug of Temptation and Sin

In my previous post, I wrote about a Christian’s struggle with sin and 4 lies we believe about our sin.

Let’s take it a step further.

Tug of war 4 Strategies to Fight the Tug of Temptation and Sin

(Photo by Tech. Sgt. Dan Neely. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

In addition to taking a defensive mindset against the lies we often believe, we need to take an active approach to sin and temptation.

Here are 4 basic strategies to help you battle the tug of temptation and sin on your heart.

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Christians Struggling with Sin and 4 Lies We Believe

Everybody sins. But when we Christians do it, reactions vary.

The world points to us as hypocrites—and often uses our sins as justification for their own. Other Christians tend to view our sins as reasons to suggest we aren’t even saved.

Sunrise at Carolina Beach North Carolina Christians Struggling with Sin and 4 Lies We Believe

(Photo by Bigroger27509. Own work. CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

But the people who offer the most brutal judgment against our sins?

Very often, it’s ourselves.

That’s because Christians struggling with sin tend to believe four lies.

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Kiriath Jearim—A Noteworthy Hill Nobody Notices

It’s a place between important places. Few individuals, if any, journey there directly. Most would miss it, in fact, if they didn’t know to look.

Modern commuters along Israel’s Route 1 motor by the site every day, their minds on their routines. Even tour buses rarely point to the place, much less stop there.

Kiriath Jearim from east tb n032000 Kiriath Jearim—A Noteworthy Hill Nobody Notices

(Photo: Kiriath Jearim, Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands.)

The tourists who do pull over often do so only to snap pictures at the Elvis American Diner (also known as the “Elvis Inn”). A 16-foot-tall bronze likeness of Elvis Presley greets every visitor. Inside the diner, Elvis music is all they hear as they eat their Elvis Burgers. But Elvis isn’t what makes this hill noteworthy.

Around the corner from the offbeat diner, near the modern Israeli Arab village of Abu Gosh, sits the site so few see and even fewer visit—the biblical site of Kiriath Jearim.

You’d never know by looking, but the physical symbol of God’s presence in Israel rested for about a century on this overlooked hill. (Tweet that.)

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