God's program for reviving His people is definite and clear. First Elijah repaired the altar of Jehovah that was thrown down. That is the place to begin. All the ruin that sin has wrought must be cleared away by confession. Things must be made right with God; restitution must be made where it is due. Unless this is done definitely and thoroughly, prayer for reviving is vain. Too many are praying today without repairing the altar by confession of sin, without digging a trench of separation from the world and without a surrender that is even unto death. No wonder such prayer is fruitless.
Andrew Gih
Short Biography
Lust is the craving for salt of a man who is dying of thirst.
Frederick Buechner
Unofficial Website
God has cast our confessed sins into the depths of the sea, and He's even put a 'No Fishing' sign over the spot.
Dwight L Moody
Brief Biography
Lord, often have I thought to myself, I will sin but this one sin more, and then I will repent of it, and of all the rest of my sins together. So foolish was I, and ignorant. As if I should be more able to pay my debts when I owe more: or as if I should say, I will wound my friend once again, and then I will lovingly shake hands with him - but what if my friend will not shake hands with me?
Thomas Fuller
Thomas Fuller
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The Grace of Repentance By Sinclair Ferguson Sinclair Ferguson looks at the biblical definition of repentance, how some modern churches are repeating medieval errors, and the necessity of reformation. Whereas current teaching often belittles repentance, Ferguson believes that it is not only essential for salvation, but is also the concrete expression of divine regeneration. |
God preserves the wicked to give them time to repent.
Comtesse de Sophie Rostopchine
Biography
Knowledge without repentance will be but a torch to light men to hell.
Thomas Watson
Online Works and Biography
God is interested in developing your character. At times He lets you proceed, but He will never let you go too far without discipline to bring you back. In your relationship with God, He may let you make a wrong decision. Then the Spirit of God causes you to recognize that it is not God's will. He guides you back to the right path. He will clarify what He wants. He will even take the circumstances of your disobedience and work that together for good (Rom. 8:28) as He corrects you and teaches you His ways.
Henry Blackaby
Website
True repentance will entirely change you; the bias of your souls will be changed, then you will delight in God, in Christ, in His Law, and in His people.
George Whitefield
The Essential George Whitefield
Conscience comes to us in lonely hours; it wakens us in the night; it stands at the side of the bed and says, Come, wake up and listen to me! And there it holds us with its remorseless eye; and our buried sins rise out of the grave of the past; they march by in melancholy procession; and we lie in terror looking at them. Nobody knows but ourselves. Next morning we go forth to business with a smiling face; but conscience has had its revenge.
James Stalker
Writings
What then? Some one will say. We have been beguiled and are lost. Is there no salvation left? We have fallen: Is it not possible to rise again? We have been blinded: May we not recover our sight? We have become crippled: Can we never walk upright? In a word, we are dead: May we not rise again? He that woke Lazarus who was four days dead and already stank, shall He not, O man, much more easily raise thee who art alive? He who shed his precious Blood for us, shall Himself deliver us from sin. Let us not despair of ourselves, brethren; let us not abandon ourselves to a hopeless condition. For it is a fearful thing not to believe in a hope of repentance.
Cyril
In reference to handing God kingship over a besetting sin in his own life. "The Lord never took that key; He took the door off, and in place of the door, He put a window and ever since that day the light of the knowledge of the glory of God has shone into my heart in the face of Jesus Christ.
Frederick Brotherton ( F. B. ) Meyer
Online Works
To Confess your sins to God is not to tell him anything he doesn't already know. Until you confess them, however, they are the abyss between you. When you confess them, they become the Golden Gate bridge.
Frederick Buechner
Unofficial Website
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Repentance: The First Word of the Gospel By Richard Owen Roberts It is a serious problem when society misunderstands or disregards sin and repentance. But when the church neglects these doctrines, the impact is profound. This book unfolds the nature and necessity of biblical repentance, but for the church in particular. Roberts' in-depth study heavily references both the Old and New Testaments, and includes chapters on the myths, maxims, marks, models, and motives of repentance, as well as the graces and fruits that accompany it. There is also wise warning about the dangers of delayed repentance. |
The truth is, living in agreement with God will bring His conviction when we are disobedient. Conviction may feel like a negative thing, but it's just as much a part of God as His smile. He is committed to making our lives work in Him, and He will use the strength and power of His conviction to let us know when we are outside His will. It may feel bad, but conviction is God at work in us.
David Edwards
Repentance is being sorry enough not to do it again. Repentance is an action for keeps.
Paul White
Conscience is God's built-in warning system. Be very happy when it hurts you. Be very worried when it doesn't.
Anonymous
None but the Lord himself can afford us The more clearly we recognize how we dig ourown wells in search of water, the more fully we can repent of our self-sufficiency and turn to God in obedient trust.
Larry Crabb
New Way Ministries
Common experience declares how momentary and how useless are those violent fits and gusts of endeavours which proceed from fear and uncertainty, both in things spiritual and things temporal, or civil. Whilst men are under the power of actual impressions from such fears, they will convert to God, yea, they will turn in a moment, and perfect their holiness in an instant; but so soon as that impression wears off (as it will do on every occasion, and upon none at all) such persons are as dead and cold towards God as the lead or iron, which but now ran in a fiery stream, is now when the heat is departed from it.
John Owen
Biography-Website
Heavenly Father, we come before you to ask your forgiveness. We seek your direction and your guidance. We know your word says, "Woe to those who call evil good." But that's what we've done. We've lost our spiritual equilibrium. We have inverted our values. We have ridiculed the absolute truth of your word in the name of moral pluralism. We have worshiped other gods and called it multiculturalism. We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle. We've exploited the poor and called it a lottery. We've neglected the needy and called it self-preservation. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. In the name of choice, we have killed our unborn. In the name of right to life, we have killed abortionists. We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem. We have abused power and called it political savvy. We have coveted our neighbour's possessions and called it taxes. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honoured values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, oh, God, and know our hearts today. Try us. Show us any wickedness within us. Cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of the State of Kansas, and that they have been ordained by you to govern this great state. Grant them your wisdom to rule. May their decisions direct us to the centre of your will. And, as we continue our prayer and as we come in out of the fog, give us clear minds to accomplish our goals as we begin this Legislature. For we pray in Jesus' name, Amen. - The original (and correct) prayer, prayed at the Kansas House of Representatives in Topeka in 1996.
Joe Wright
Central Christian Church
A rent garment is catched by every nail, and the rent made wider. Renew therefore thy repentance speedily, whereby this breach may be made up, and worse prevented.
William Gurnall
Online Works
We all need changes. I've heard people who say, "I have no regrets about my life. If I had it to do over, I'd do it the same way again." But that attitude is way too blind and self-serving as far as I'm concerned. There is great power in confession: to ourselves, to God, to others. Owning up to our failures is the first, painful step on the road to something better.
Anonymous
Be assured that one who shall always walk faithfully in God's presence, always ready to given Him an account of his/her actions, shall never be separated from God by consenting to sin.
Thomas Aquinas
Biography
Am I really what I ought to be? Am I what, in the bottom of my heart, I honestly wish to be? Am I living a life at all like what I myself approve? My secret nature, the true complexion of my character, is hidden from all men, and only I know it. Is it such as I should be willing to show? Is my soul at all like what my kindest and most intimate friends believe? Is my heart at all such as I should wish the Searcher of Hearts to judge me by? Is every year adding to my devotion, to my unselfishness, to my conscientiousness, to my freedom from the hypocrisy of seeming so much better than I am? When I compare myself with last year, am I more ready to surrender myself at the call of duty? am I more alive to the commands of conscience? have I shaken off my besetting sins?" These are the questions which this season of Lent ought to find us putting fairly and honestly to our hearts.
Frederick Temple
Biography
Every person has fallen at some time in his life - most, many times. Peter's steps in denying Christ have since been traced by every human foot. Anyone can understand how he could have slept in the garden, when he should have watched and prayed. Most of us feel an almost unconscious sympathy for him. But there is something in Peter's life that is much greater than his sin. It is his repentance. We all too easily relate to Peter in his weakness, but few of us grasp the wonder of his change. Sinful Peter is one man, and repentant Peter another. That is the real lesson in his life.
Henry Drummond
Father, in the name of Jesus, I make a fresh commitment to You to live in peace and harmony, not only with other brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ, but also with my friends, associates, neighbours and family. I let go of bitterness, resentment, envying, strife and unkindness in any form.
Anonymous
If I disobey the inner voice of His Spirit, I will lose the fullness. I can never lose the relationship, but I will lose the fullness. When there's disobedience in the Christian life the fullness ceases. He is there but He is grieved. And you soon know when you've lost the fullness, because the joy is gone. The fellowship is gone. The reality of the presence of Christ is gone. It's Satan's delight to tell me that once he's got me, he will keep me. But at that moment I can go back to Him. And I know that if I confess my sins, God is faithful and just to forgive me.
Alan Redpath
Brief Biography And List Of Works
Contrition, repentance, acknowledgement of personal responsibility and sorrow over sin should never include massive self-hatred and total self-rejection. God's conviction points to a specific sin, it is sharp and accurate, going straight to the point where repentence is needed. Truly understanding this principle will lead you into freedom from your past so you can serve God and His people without the fetters of constantly looking behind.
Katherine Walden
I Lift My Eyes Web Ministries
To win the war against fear, we must know the true God as He is revealed in the Bible. He works to give us lasting peace. He receives joy, not from condemning us but in rescuing us from the devil. Yes, the Lord will bring conviction to our hearts concerning sin, but it is so He can deliver us from sin's power and consequences. In its place, the Lord works to establish healing, forgiveness and peace.
Francis Frangipane
Ministries of Francis Frangipane
Man's good opinion of himself makes him think it quite possible to win God's favour by his own religious performances; his bad opinion of God makes him unwilling and afraid to put his case wholly into His hands. The object of the Holy Spirit's work (in convincing of sin) is to alter the man's (sinner's) opinion of himself and so to reduce his estimate of his own character that he should think of himself as God does, and so cease to suppose it possible that he can be justified by any excellency of his own. The Spirit then alters his evil opinion of God, so as to make him see that the God with whom he has to do is really the God of all grace.
Horatius Bonar
The Horatius Bonar Homepage
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