Theme: Repentance: Can We Say That?

Unto Our Blessing

Repentance is one of those words that sometimes falls into the same category as words like surgery, taxes and root canal.  It’s not a word that gives us warm fuzzies.

In fact we tend to treat it as a heavy theological word.  But it’s really an everyday word.  When you peel away its outer layers, you discover a word that is loaded with blessing.  In fact it’s all about blessing! 

Start talking about repentance with anybody and somewhere in the conversation somebody will make reference to the famous parable known as the Prodigal Son (See Luke 15).  Most people read the story and identify with the prodigal son, but the story is really about the prodigal’s Father.  You see, Jesus wanted the religious critics of his day to see his ministry as a reflection of his Father’s heart for man. The Pharisees had a problem with Jesus’ social habits, namely, he conversed with sinners about the kingdom.  (It’s interesting that the people who knew the most about God and talked the most about Him couldn’t recognize Him when he made a personal visit.  Scary to say the least.)

The son in the story is headstrong.  He lives by base instinct.  “You want to do it…do it!…And sweat the details later.”  He runs away and blows everything.  His relationships revolve around a base lifestyle and his ability to throw good parties.  When the resources dry up, so do his “friendships”.  Disoriented by what life has become, he falls in with pigs…literally. His hunger is so great he actually has an appetite for the food the hogs eat.

I don’t know what day of the week it happened on.  The text doesn’t say.  Perhaps he saw something written on a billboard or was moved by something he overheard in a conversation between two people or got tired of people laughing at him.  Maybe his heart finally broke. Who knows.  What we do know is that one day, in the middle of his “bottom” he “came to his senses” and had the first healthy self-talk he had experienced in months – perhaps years.  And, he started thinking about…home. 

It was in that moment that he denied Satan the power to do what he does best.  It was THE fork in the middle of his spiritual road.  It was the moment when every evil thought and malicious power that Satan could muster was hurled into his mind and massaged into his heart.  “Where you sit, where you are right now is where you belong.  You earned this.  Deal with.  Don’t think about your alternatives.   What alternatives?!  Your past and where you sit right now are value statements.  You have the right to nothing else.  Grab a husk and chew!” 

But he “got up.”  The first 10 steps out of the pen were long spiritual miles.  When he topped a hill a little ways from home, he saw firsthand what repentance was.  It was a banana-wide grin on his father’s face.  It was a hug and a kiss.  It was clothes and security.  It was sonship.  After all, that’s what he was...a son.  A son who had lost his way.  A son who came to his senses.  A son who found his way back into blessing.

I think that’s what repentance is.  Jesus gave us that picture…on purpose.  Sounds pretty good doesn’t it?  And, it’s ours from our Father unto our blessing.  We just have to remember it.  We just have to do it.  

Father, thank you for pursuing us.  Thank you for offering us acceptance and renewal based on your faithfulness.  Save us from every dark thought that the Evil One would put into our minds when we are “down and out” spiritually that would keep us from running to you.  Help us to know that we can always run to you and know that you will clean us up, dress us and claim us as your sons and daughters.  Thank you for Jesus who makes all things new.

Randy Daugherty

Stephenville, Texas