A Call for Repentance!

A Call for Repentance!

A boy was caught stealing apples from the kitchen in a boarding school.  He was brought to the chaplain.  “Now you must confess your sins, and ask God for forgiveness,” he counseled.  The boy prayed, “Dear God, please forgive me for taking seven apples from the kitchen.” “But I thought you told me that you stole five apples,” the chaplain asked.  “Yes, but I am including the two I am going to take tomorrow” the boy answered.   As someone puts it, “Repentance is not feeling sorry on Sunday for what you did on Saturday which you will do again on Monday.” (David Wong, Make them Laugh and make them Learn, Story 18, BAC Printers, Singapore)

The Gospel writer Mark records that Jesus proclaimed the good news of God by preaching repentance.  He followed in the footsteps of John the Baptist who also preached the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Mark 1:4 &15) The Old Testament tradition of the prophets was their message to God’s chosen people to repent of their sins and escape from the punishment of God.  However, the Israelite's rarely responded to the prophet’s call for repentance.  The exception was the people of Nineveh who repented all the way from the King and his people along with their animals adorning the sack cloth. (Jonah 3:6-10)  God’s chosen people eventually failed to repent and received their judgment of being exiled from the Promised Land.  

Today, the call for repentance is for us who declare our faith in Jesus Christ.  Repentance is not an onetime act.  As forgiven sinners, we need to repent of our sins frequently as we are still being sanctified until the day the Lord takes us home or his second coming.  We need to repent of our complacent attitude towards God, our compromising moral conduct and our corrupted mind towards one another.  It is pride, the age old origin of sin that is a stumbling block for repentance. 

Let us beware of complacency, reject compromise and repent of our corrupt mind that God in His mercy will transform us by the renewing of our mind. (Rom 12:1-2) May we pray for one another as we humble ourselves and say “Lord create in us a contrite heart, a consecrated life and a cleansed conscience”! God has promised that when we in humility repent, there is forgiveness and healing. (2Ch 7:13-14)  Let us experience this forgiveness and healing everyday! John Amalraj