Broken and Beloved THE GIFT OF REPENTANCE
written by Aimee Taylor Most people probably wouldn’t think of repentance as a gift but rather as a burden. Because it’s hard to admit that we are in need, or that we have done something wrong, or worse yet, to acknowledge that, at our core, we are simply just broken. We hate this about ourselves. I can say that I truly hate being broken, and in fact, for much of my walk with Jesus, I tossed my sin at Him and said flippantly, “Will you please just fix this so I can get it right finally?!” I knew I needed Jesus to justify me, but what I really wanted was to be fixed so that I didn’t need Him anymore. I wanted to become even more SELF-RELIANT. I wanted my sin removed so that I could be more beautiful in and of myself and get more and more glory for ME. Wow, when He showed me the ugliness of this gross sin, I was astounded. I couldn’t even begin to see into such a deep level of self-deception without the Holy Spirit, confirming once again, the verse that declares, “The heart is most devious and incurably sick, who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9, The Voice) So, what exactly is repentance? Quite simply, it means to turn away from our sin and instead turn toward God. This turning, though, is totally contrary to our natural bent. As humans, we want what we want. We want to bring glory to ourselves and not to God. We want truth defined from our own vantage point. We want God’s goodness to mean that I am happy and comfortable at all times. Our brokenness is so deep and entrenched. Even though I wish that this bent would just magically go away when we give our lives to Jesus, we are stuck with our miserable sin-nature until we go home to be with Jesus. So, what is the answer? As usual - the answer is - Jesus! We need total surrender to His will, His way, and His truth. 34
