4. ONCE YOU REPENT, THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE IN JESUS

No matter what you have done, how much you have sinned or how far you have gone, once you repent, there is ALWAYS hope in Jesus.

Genuine repentance means to be sorry for your sin, to humbly go before God (not man) and confess what you’ve done to Him and that you sinned against Him, asking for his forgiveness and firmly resolving in your heart, to not do it again.

Like the Father in the story in the Bible with the Prodigal son, Jesus stands with arms wide open, willing to RECONCILE you with God, if you never had relationship with him. If you have relationship with Him but are outside his favour and in the domain of curses (not blessings) because you sinned against Him, he also wants to RESTORE you.

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:

However far you may have fallen or however messed up your life may be as a result of your poor decisions, you need to simply BELIEVE in Jesus Christ.

Stop focusing on people and LOOK TO HIM.

In the Old Testament, after the Israelites had rebelled and therefore sinned against God, in righteous justice, he sent fiery snakes which bit and killed many of them. However, in his mercy, he later instructed Moses to make a brass serpent and place it up on a pole, which, if the Israelites looked to it after being bitten and thereby being infected by its venom, they would not die but live. Whoever looked up at it, no matter how close he or she was to death after being bitten, they lived.

Numbers 21:8-9 states:

• “ And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

The person who was bitten had to therefore come in faith or be brought in faith to the place where the serpent of brass was erected on a pole, in order to be healed. If he doubted and remained where he was, he died but if he came and looked upon the pole where that brass serpent was erected, he lived. He lived because he accepted the antidote God set for healing which could only be obtained through his obedience and he obeyed the invitation to come.

Similarly, in the New Testament, Jesus Christ was lifted up on the cross for your sins and mine, when he died a sacrificial death. He is no longer dead but risen (praise God) and in Him is God’s antidote for sin. The wages of your sin (which you were infected with from birth and which is worse than deadly poison) is death but thank God, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ his Son (Romans 6:23).

No matter how sin-infected you may be therefore and how dead, rejected and hopeless you may feel, Jesus desires that you LOOK TO HIM for your healing, your forgiveness, your salvation, your restoration, your everything.

In John 12:32, before Jesus died, he stated prophetically: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”

In John 3:14-17, he said:

• “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

In 1 John 2:1-2, it also reads:

• “And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

For starters therefore, to be free from your sin, BELIEVE on the Lord Jesus Christ and LOOK TO HIM.

BE GENUINELY SORRY for your wrongdoing and CONFESS your sins before him.

ASK HIM FOR FORGIVENESS and thereafter, believe, in faith, that he has forgiven you.

TURN FULLY to his light.

GIVE UP YOUR STUBBORN WAYS, what you think are your ‘rights’ and trying to control your life.

SURRENDER COMPLETELY to his Lordship and his will for your existence.

SUBMIT to his Word as recorded in the Bible. Whatever it tells you to do, do.

SET YOUR MIND and focus on things above (heaven) and no longer things on earth (the world’s way of operating).

OBEY his New Testament commands and instructions because you are under the new covenant, subject to the law of liberty and part of the body of Christ.

If we do things God’s way and not according to our limited understanding, we will be amazed at the TRANSFORMATION that he brings to our lives. If we ACKNOWLEDGE Him in all our ways, He will direct our path (Proverbs 3:6 KJV).

(Written on 11th August, 2018, added to thereafter)