Revelation 3:17 (NASB)
17Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,
Malachi 3:7 (NASB)
7 “From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of hosts. “But you say, ‘How shall we return?’

I recently shared the ingredients to repentance from the book by the Puritan, Thomas Watson, entitled “The Doctrine of Repentance”.

In order to get to the steps of repentance, though, we have to get beyond our natural inclination to avoid repentance. Watson shares a number of impediments to repentance. Here are a couple that I can see in my life.

We do not really see the need for repentance. I mean, really what is the big deal. John is telling the church in Laodicea in Revelation that they are lukewarm in their faith, they need to address the sin in their lives. The church’s response is “We are rich, we have plenty and don’t need anything.”

Or we are stubborn, as the prophet Malachi warns. When we are confronted with our sin, we brush it off by saying – How do we return? When we really know that we need to repent and turn away.

The second impediment is that we trivialize repentance, thinking it is an easy thing to do. We say a few prayers, ask God to have mercy, never confronting the specific sins. If we are honest, we have a mountain of sin to deal with in our lives. Yes, we are forgiven and God loves us, but He wants so much more for us. It takes a steady climb each and every day to deal with that mountain.

Watson’s purpose in sharing these things is not to give us a mountain of guilt, but to give us an appreciation for the importance of repentance.

Our prayer life cannot consist of only the requests that we make to God, but it has to start with humbly repenting of the things the Holy Spirit has revealed to us that grieves the Father.

Join us this Tuesday night at 7pm as we lift our voices to God, praising Him for the forgiveness He is ready to give us. We only have to ask.

Always praying for the glory of God,