My Achy Breaky Heart

According to Webster’s Dictionary the word Repent means to turn from sin and dedicate oneself to the amendment of one's life. There is an incredibly alarming trend in the modern church. Honestly, it terrifies me. As someone who has had a lot to repent from in my lifetime, it bothers me tremendously, the trend to preach grace without repentance.

Please understand, that I understand how harsh this will sound. I am afraid so many will misconstrue the message here. I am a huge proponent for reaching the lost. I was once one of them. I am a proponent of loving the sinner, some may not think so if you do not read this in its entirety. I am a proponent of getting the message of salvation to the lost. But as leaders we must make certain not to leave people suckling on the milk while what they need is meat. Should we only give them the "milk" of the gospel, then we have done them an injustice. For even the enemy and his demons, believe in Jesus and his power, but they have no redemption. Love them in, but don't just tickle their ears. 

My heart aches tonight. I’m a social media junkie. If you know me, you know that. But this week it has been a method of real discouragement. I have read so many posts this week from friends, family members and some, even those entrusted by the Almighty lead His people. I’ve watched virtual fist fights this week and people claiming to be Christians, atheists, agnostics, heterosexuals, bisexuals and homosexuals rip each other apart. I’ve seen pastors all but condemn the teaching of the law. I’ve seen men of God condemn other men of God for teaching repentance and for teaching that there is a standard of holiness to live up to. One of my children was privy to a conversation where a person known to be living in an adulterous lifestyle condemned someone living in a homosexual lifestyle.

In every circumstance where Jesus exemplified grace, there was turning…a change.

When He healed, grace was extended and sins were forgiven but lives were changed, the people left differently than they came in. This should be what we see today in our churches. Modern theology says come dirty and Jesus will clean you, and while this is true, you don’t return like swine to the muck and mire.

When Jesus extended grace to the woman caught in adultery, He did not say to her “go on back to what you were doing”. On the contrary, He said, “Go and sin no more”, meaning that she was to cease what she had been doing. To stop, to turn, to repent.

He did not leave the demon filled, full of demons; he removed the demons, changing the people so dramatically that they were no longer recognizable. On the road to Damascus, though Paul had not previously been afflicted, affliction was brought upon him, but afterward he was never the same, as a matter of fact the persecutor became the persecuted for the sake of Christ. David learned a harsh and valuable lesson after the birth and death of his first son with Bathsheba, I attest she did as well as you never heard of them having more affairs did you? While he was never perfect, David never repeated the same sin twice. And if he did sin, he grieved over his sin, he lamented and repented with everything within him. He was a man that knew how to learn a lesson. It is for this reason that he was called “a man after God’s own heart”. Not that he did not sin, but that it was his desire not to and when he did, he did not blame someone else, he did not excuse it. David was not afraid to own it and turn from it. It was in the turning he gained the attention of God.

We have a responsibility after grace saves us to turn from that lifestyle of sin; otherwise we invalidate the blood of Jesus. We make a mockery of grace.

We cannot look to men as an example of Holiness, only to Jesus. The disciples themselves were idiots, just like us. Plain and simple. They walked with the Savior, lived with Him, ate with Him, followed and observed every move He made and yet they still did not get it. On the night of his arrest, before going into the garden to pray, these selfish and arrogant men argued over who was his favorite and who would sit bedside Him in Heaven. It was only after the indwelling of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that it finally sank into their thick skulls. Even after seeing Him resurrected, they still were not fully convinced of all they had seen with their own eyes. Sounds a lot like us, huh?

The current trend in preaching only teaches grace. There is little talk of turning. Popular phrases “the finished work is done” or “when Jesus died on the cross it was finished, all your sins past, present and future were forgiven”. While these are true statements, to simply end there is dangerous. It is the repented sin that is covered in the past, it is the unintentional sin that is repented in the present that is covered and it is the unintentional repented sin that is covered in days to come.

I’m touching on dangerous ground here and will probably catch some flack for this. There are lifestyles (many) that are Biblically considered abominations. Old Testament and New Testament alike reveal and concur on each of these. The current trend is to say that Jesus came to free us from the law. While there is a smidgen of true to this, it is dangerous to conclude that we do not need the law. Every thing on Earth is governed by laws. Gravity, nature… we need law, law serves to create and maintain order. Again, the law was given to Moses by God. We believe in a Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus said himself, “The Father and I are one” and “when you see me, you have seen the Father”. John 1:1 says in the beginning was the Word. He was not mad at the Pharisees for their laws; he was frustrated because they had knowledge without understanding. It was not their laws, it was Gods law. He and father are one, which means that he too created the law and therefore would be contradicting himself. God cannot lie, so he cannot contradict

To preach grace without repentance is to pull out scriptures to justify what we want to hear. In Matthew 5:17 Jesus said “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them.”  In another version it reads. “I come to accomplish its purpose” 

I enjoy a variety of preaching styles and most often if you are in my home, you will hear preaching on one of my TVs. At my desk, when working on paperwork, I will often have sermons going in the background while working on my reports and paperwork. A couple of years ago a popular preacher was one that I rarely missed. His teaching has changed though and in my thoughts, borders on heresy now. He preaches right up to God’s love, the sacrifice and what was done through grace, but there is NEVER any mention of the change that must come. Never any mention that we are called to Holiness just as Christ, the sacrifice, is Holy.

I have often said, and still contend, that an apology without repentance is useless, it is just lip service. A couple of scenarios: you own a business and one of your employees is stealing from you, she is caught, she apologizes and you give her another chance. (This is what grace does) The next week it all happens again. Then the next and the next. You begin to think what? “She really isn’t sorry”, right?

Or how about a child molester. He abuses the child, he apologizes, but then he does it again and apologizes again. Over and over the cycle is repeated. Is he truly sorry?

Common sense says in both cases, there is no true sorrow here. There is no sorrow for what they have done, only that they got caught.

So it goes with sin. If we have claimed to be saved by grace, yet we continue sinning, we have wasted grace. Hebrews 10:26 says “if we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Romans 6:1-2 asks the important question “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin: how can we live in it any longer? 2 Corinthians 5:17 states “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” Friends, if you are spiritual leaders, you must teach grace and repentance hand in hand, how else are they to be “new creations” without rebirth or change.

Some things bother me today and I know they must grieve the Lord as well. People who try to rationalize sin by saying “no sin is worse than another’ or “don’t judge lest you be judged”. No, one sin is not weighed greater than another and yes we all sin and fall short of the grace of God, but there are 7 that God hates and from these all others flow. “Don’t judge” has become so twisted. No, we are not to judge the person, but we are to judge their fruits. The only example of Holy living is Christ. Years ago, WWJD bracelets were all the rage, books and t-shirts were every where, but the question that should have been asked was WWJND, What would Jesus Not Do? If He would not do it, we don’t do it. Period! If the Word, the author and finisher of our faith did not live in sin then neither should we.

The murderer who continues to kill after claiming grace, the one who practices witchcraft after enlightenment, the one who still worships idols after claiming grace, the liar who continues to lie, the adulterer who continues to perpetrate the adulterous act, the homosexual who does not convert, the harlot and the whoremonger who continues the practice have wasted the blood of Jesus. Yes! I said it. And yes, I believe it. If I say I believe that the Bible is the Word of God then I must believe that EVERY word of it is TRUE. If not, then I am no better than a Pharisee, and I have been one, I was very good at it. But I cannot change His word. My job is to hate the sin and love the sinner.

But in the midst of all this I must judge the fruits of those claiming to be in Christ lest I be led astray or false teachers lead others astray.

Now before you crucify me, let me tell you this. I have family members that practice homosexuality. I love them with all my heart and I will fight you to the death over them, I will cut you over them. But I will not defend the lifestyle, just as I will not defend the lifestyle of anything or anyone else that the word of God says is detestable. We have openly discussed this. They know I love them, they know that their lifestyle is their choice. They know that I believe in the literal word of God and just as I respect their right to believe what they want, they respect my right to believe what I choose.

I loved my husband; I would have stayed with him. He chose to walk away and continue in a lifestyle that God says is detestable, I chose to repent and turn. Does that make me better? I don’t know. It makes me obedient to the word of God as it is written in the book that those claiming to be Christians believe.

One of the major arguments of those wanting to rationalize sin is “a loving God would not condemn a person to hell” And they are right. It is not God that condemns the sinner to hell, that’s the sinner’s choice. It took me a very long time to understand free will. In the past, the free will of others frustrated me to the point of anger with God. The very gift of free will becomes the curse we impose upon ourselves when we make the choice not to repent.

John 3:17 For God did not send His Son to into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

Now that I have either thoroughly ticked everyone off or got you running aisles shouting “amen”, I will answer the question that has to be on your mind if you are still reading this. “What makes me the authority? “What gives me the right?” Well, how about the fact that this former Pharisee, former hypocrite, in 46 years of my life, has at some point had to repent… a lot!  DO NOT misunderstand me, I am not bragging or boasting. I say what I am about to say out of a heart that is completely repentant, restored and humbled at the grace and mercy extended to me. Ok…with that said, at some point and time in my life, I have broken the heart of the father by breaking everyone of the twelve commandments (yes, there are twelve, Jesus added two more) and at some time I have committed all but one of those called abominations.

But I chose not to stay there. I chose to change, to repent. I chose to heed the voice of the Holy Spirit. We are each to bear our own cross. For me, when I would finally surrender my heart to the Father, the Holy Spirit would place a mirror in my face to show me how my sin broke the heart of the Father and hurt so many others. In exposing my sin to me in such a way, I came completely broken, sin in hand, gave it to Jesus who then covered it in His blood and now my father mercifully lets me remember to keep me from returning to that wrong lifestyle, yet He himself has cast if from his own memory. 

Judge me by my fruits. If you knew me then and know me now, you can. My children will tell you, mama is not the same.

My heart aches for humanity because in all the rationalization, justification and accusation, I fear that most have missed the message of Christ all over again.

With all of this said, the Holy Spirit spoke to me a couple of years ago while I was grieving myself to death over another’s free will decision. It was then that the spirit revealed to me that on the Day of Judgment, I will not be asked what anyone else did. I will only be asked what I did or did not do. I will only be accountable for what I have done. I choose to exercise my free will by repenting and turning as the Holy Spirit reveals and guides. I choose to do my best in the strength of Christ to not only WWJD but also not do the things that He would not do and in doings so have the assurance that my sins, having turned from them, are covered under the blood of Christ never to be held against me again.

Each of us is gifted in a different area, some prophesy, some teach, some have more than one. One of my responsibilities is to be watchmen on a wall. Watchmen warn. It’s not a fun job, it does not make you popular, but it is necessary. A city in a fortress with no watchman is a city waiting to be destroyed within its own walls.

In Revelation the spirit warns the churches that He would rather the church be hot or cold, that he will spit the lukewarm out of his mouth, meaning it makes Him sick. Preaching grace without turning is telling a half truth. Half truth is a whole lie, it is misleading and allows the spirit of luke-warmness in. Lukewarm is comfortable now but it grieves the heart of God. It also opens doors to the spirit of discord, which has been very apparent to me this week among those claiming to be speaking the truth.

Truth is not relative, despite what modern society says. Truth created the Earth, made us in His image, gave us laws to live Holy, came to Earth to dwell among us, died on a cross to give us redemption for our sins, rose from the grave to prepare a place for those who would repent and live Holy lives, Truth searches for us even now to return to the fold. Truth will one day return to judge the living and the dead.

Christians, do not compromise the gospel; do not tell only a portion. Tell them God loves them, tell them He longs to bring them home, but show them a walk blameless and Holy.

 Sinner, there is NOTHING that you have done that you cannot be redeemed from. Trust me, I know. You don’t have to get your act clean to come to Him. Come as you are, learn His voice, and let Him clean you up. Come with a repentant heart; surrender that thing you want to rationalize, in His strength, turn from that sin that has so long had you bound and never pick it up again.  Let the Holy Spirit be your guide. Yes, He does love you just as you are, but He loves you enough not to want to leave you where you are.  It’s not easy…but oh it’s worth it.

Paul writes to the Philippians after instructing them in the truth, "There fore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Psalm 51:10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 

Maybe I’m wrong, but I would rather err on the side of His word in hopes of hearing “well done, thy good and faithful servant.... enter in”

This week's song: Come to the Well- Casting Crowns