Repentance

This blog post is the eighth in a series of posts about the gift and power of the Holy Spirit that the believer has access to.

To the reader who may not have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you might be wondering if you can just ask to receive the Holy Spirit. The answer is no--we have to confess and repent of sin, and accept Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for our sin, before we can receive the Holy Spirit. Similarly, even believers need to be willing to continually repent, if need be, and to continually “be filled with” the Spirit. It starts with repentance--even Jesus began his earthly ministry with these words:

“From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’”

Matthew 4:17 (NIV)

Notice how Jesus’ message was an exact repeat of what John the Baptist preached:

“In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’” Matthew 3:1-2 (NIV)

Jesus started His earthly public ministry with the word “repent”. But that’s not all. Jesus continued to put the emphasis on repentance throughout His entire earthly ministry “from that time on”. From start to finish. Repentance first, the kingdom of heaven follows! Repentance allows us to be saved, and repentance breaks strongholds.

Jesus also continued to emphasize to the disciples that they were to preach repentance as well:

“Then He said to them, ‘These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.’ And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.

“Then He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things.’” Luke 24:44-48 (NKJV)

We are convicted of sin (by the Holy Spirit), confess and repent, then we can receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and receive the Holy Spirit. We can’t skip repentance--it is a necessary part of salvation. We can’t just receive the Holy Spirit because we want to be a Christian. We need to come before God with our sin, in need of Christ. Likewise, we need to keep confessing known sin (and thank God that the Holy Spirit reveals it to us) and continue to be filled with the Spirit. Now would be a good time to pause to consider if there is any sin to confess. Not all eating problems are a result of sin, but the likelihood of repentance being necessary when we find ourselves in bondage to something is high. While overeating is often driven by underlying unresolved pain (and that pain may involve sin), sin can also be involved in the overeating (some examples: eating addiction driven by guilt for unconfessed sin, feeding lust of the flesh in sin of gluttony, treating food as an idol above God, dieting motivated by obsessive focus on self and body image making self an idol above God, etc.)

The disciples could preach repentance until they were blue in the face, but repentance is a work of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life. Jesus continually called people to repentance, and it is likewise still God who needs to move us to repentance now via conviction of the Holy Spirit who Jesus said would “convict the world of sin”:

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment . . .” John 16:7-8 (NKJV)

But why would Jesus want to constantly preach about repentance? Was it to make people constantly feel bad? No, it is because it is necessary to be reconciled to God, and this is what His whole purpose for coming to earth was. If Jesus consistently and firstly focused on repentance, then I see no reason why we wouldn’t want to do the same. Following the example of Jesus, we need to take care of first things first. Of course I am happy to provide support for nutrition and behavior change immediately, regardless of whether or not the call to repentance is heeded immediately. But do realize that if there is sin involved, then the healing process from bondage to freedom starts with repentance and includes the powerful help of the Holy Spirit. Don’t misunderstand—repentance is not a work. We cannot rouse ourselves up to repentance:

“For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” 2 Corinthians 7:10 (NKJV)

A “godly sorrow” is sorrow produced by the Holy Spirit according to the will of God that produces repentance. Repentance is about turning from sin and restoring relationship with God (there’s that word relationship again). The baptism of the Holy Spirit involves repentance. It is initiated by God, and again we are back to His Grace:

“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.” 2 Timothy 2:24-26 (NIV)

If you are reading this and realizing that you cannot produce repentance but need it, then pray to God for it. The Puritans used to pray for “the gift of tears”. Notice that in the confession and repentance, and thus the remission of sin, we can be reconciled to God, restored in relationship. Remember how important restoring relationship with God is in overcoming the bondage of relationship with food? All of this takes Grace. Don’t miss the Grace.

Oswald Chambers wrote:

“Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict of sin, and when the Holy Spirit rouses a man’s conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not his relationship with men that bothers him, but his relationship with God—‘against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight.’ The marvels of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven man who is the holy man, he proves he is forgiven by being the opposite to what he was, by God’s grace. Repentance always brings a man to this point: I have sinned. The surest sign that God is at work is when a man says that and means it. Anything less than this is remorse for having made blunders, the reflex action of disgust at himself.

“The entrance into the Kingdom is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a man’s respectable goodness; then the Holy Ghost, Who produces these agonies, begins the formation of the Son of God in the life. The new life will manifest itself in conscious repentance and unconscious holiness, never the other way about. The bedrock of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a man cannot repent when he chooses; repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for ‘the gift of tears’”.1

Wanting to lose weight as “the reflex action of disgust” stops short of conviction and repentance for sin. Self-disgust does not produce the change that comes with true repentance.

Let me re-emphasize how important it is to walk with God through the process of behavior change because it would not be helpful but, in fact, counterproductive to think something is sin when it is not. It is important to follow God’s lead because especially for dieters (but also pervasive in the cultural mentality) there is confusion as to what is “good” or “bad” to eat. For example, so often dieters think they are “bad” if they didn’t follow the rules of a diet, that they “cheated”. There is real cheating that the Bible calls sin, but I daresay if your relationship is right with God that eating a piece of chocolate cream pie is not sin. Does enjoying a bowl of ice cream mean you have gone a “crooked path” (Proverbs 10:9) or enjoying a piece of wedding cake mean you have lost your integrity? If you eat a piece of chocolate does that mean you are a liar, a deceiver, or an adulterer? These are what the Bible calls cheating. God forbid, dear reader, that you would misconstrue what I am saying and think you are in sin when you enjoy a bowl of ice cream. You may be, or you may not be. It’s important to be available to let the Holy Spirit reveal to you if there is any sin involved in your eating that requires repentance.

There are a variety of reasons why people don’t eat well, and not all of it is sin. You may have allowed a relationship with food to replace a relationship with God not realizing that God desires relationship with you. On the other hand, you may have made food an idol (an idol is anything that replaces God). However, don’t confuse enjoying food with idolizing food. Since God gives us food to enjoy, then it isn’t an idol if we enjoy it. Perhaps you have simply developed some out-of-balance eating behaviors--that wouldn’t be unusual in a culture that has flipped a healthy diet upside down. That may or may not be sin if you have become a poor steward of your health. Or you may be guilty of the sin of gluttony. Or maybe you don’t think God cares about what you eat as you endeavor to keep your priorities right with Him and, if so, you’d be partly right. When I began to lead the first Christ-centered support/recovery group for people in bondage to food I was so gung-ho to tell people about the freedom I had received, but God stopped me about 6 months into leading the group and gently revealed that while He does grieve for our diseases and bondages, even if we remain obese or anorexic to the grave that is not His first priority for us (like I was making it sound), but that His first priority is relationship with us. Duh. Guess what happens when we get that right? When people would ask me how I lost all the weight I really didn’t have much more to say to explain it other than the closer I got to God the weight “just melted off”. That was the big Truth that included all the particulars I could share.

So if you are struggling with overeating ask God to reveal if there is any sin, then confess it, repent and ask God for His help in moving forward. Has food taken the rightful place of God in your life? Not everyone who overeats is sinning but if you are in bondage to food the likelihood of sin is high. If an emotionally pained person abuses food is that somehow better than a person who turns to alcohol or drugs or promiscuous sex to assuage their pain? Does overeating seem better because it doesn’t “hurt” as many of my friends and family as being a drug addict does (and so it seems to be a more personal problem)?

In my case, the Holy Spirit did indeed convict me of the sin of gluttony. I was not even consciously aware of it at the time, but as I stood in front of the refrigerator bingeing for the umpteenth time as I had done for 15 years straight, suddenly I felt very bad for eating so much food when there were people starving in the world. I do not remember ever consciously having that thought before that night. I believe that was the conviction of the Holy Spirit (of my sin) because not only did I suddenly “see” something I had not thought of before, but for the first time I felt conviction, not condemnation. For all 15 years prior I had only felt self-condemnation for my weight and lack of willpower. I didn’t understand it then, but I know the difference now—conviction is from the Holy Spirit, condemnation is from the enemy:

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus . . .” Romans 8:1 (NIV)

I also know that was the Holy Spirit that night because it was the key turning point from going ever further deeper into addiction and beginning the process of turning and coming up out of it. The Holy Spirit wrought a change in me as I finally came out of so much denial and not only realized clearly, “Something is obviously wrong”, but also began to ask the question of God, “What is wrong?” I couldn’t label the pain yet, but God was leading and I was beginning to “understand” at a very elementary level what the Holy Spirit would continue to reveal (truth!) throughout the process that led to freedom. Jesus said the Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of truth . . . He dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17, NKJV) and “He will teach you all things” (John 14:26, NKJV). The change had begun, a powerful work of the Holy Spirit.

When we confess and repent of sin God is Faithful to forgive:

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9 (NKJV)

But forgiveness isn’t the end for the Christian—it is only the beginning! Confessing Christians have not only been forgiven, we have been restored to God (relationship). This is the joy of the Christian and the joy of the Lord is our strength!

Footnotes

Chambers, O. (1963). My utmost for His highest. Copyright © 1935 by Dodd Mead & Co., renewed © 1963 by Oswald Chambers Publications Assn., Ltd. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Grand Rapids, MI 49501. All rights reserved.

N.E.W. LIFE Books