Wednesday, 1 March 2017

East Ridge Pres

Joel 2:12 “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Do you ever weep for your sins? The reason we have so little joy in God and so little joy in obedience to God is that we have so few tears. The more we weep and mourn over our rebellion and disobedience, the more joy we will have in forgiveness, salvation, grace, and a new day with a new opportunity to obey God with the sins of yesterday washed away. Do you ever mourn and weep as you reflect on your sins? Do you ever fast from food and seek the grace of God by prayer to kill a sin in your heart? If we feed ourselves every desire of our heart. And give our desires all they want. Including food. If we feed ourselves indulgently all day long we will find it impossible to obey God when it hurts. We must fast and humbly seek God for rescue from a sin in our heart. Repent means to turn away from or leave our sin behind. Repentance is not the night of darkness. Repentance is the dawn. Repentance is when the sun is coming up and it is a brand new day. When you repent the grace of God streams into your life, like the sun rise streams into the darkness of the night and awakens a brand new day. God is gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love. If you weep and mourn and fast seeking forgiveness and deliverance, today can be a new day of obedience.