March 2009
A Life of Repentance
—Psalm 116

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.”
Luke 24:46-47 (NKJ)

The season of Lent is a time when many people “give something up for lent.” Many times
this is but a thinly veiled attempt to exonerate oneself from real guilt. Such a concept however is silliness because the season of lent is about the suffering and death of the son of God in place of sinners.

This means that you and every other sinner faced the wrath of God, separation from God,
and death, because of your sin. But Jesus came to be the substitute for sinners, all sinners, and the substitute for each and every sin! This means that Jesus took your place, receiving the wrath of His father toward your sin, being separated from His God and Father because your sin was placed upon Him, and dying the death you deserve!

Why did God do all of this? Because it was necessary! The death of the innocent Son of God, was the only way that the wrath of God toward sin and sinners could be appeased. This sounds too simple to be true. But your God offered His Son in your place because of the great love with which He loved you.

In your Baptism your God called you to a Life of Repentance (Luke 5:32). Repentance is more a way of life than it is an activity. In Baptism, you were joined to your Lord Jesus Christ, and Baptized into His death and His resurrection. The apostle Paul explains that this means that just as Christ Jesus died for sin (your sin), you die to sin.

And, just as Jesus rose from the dead, you are now called to walk in newness of Life!
Baptized Life! And this rhythm is a day by day, minute by minute, relationship with Jesus.

Repentance is not a “Lenten thing”. True repentance is the beating heart of the Christian’s Faith and Life!

As each baptized child of God lives in that life of repentance, they do so, you do so, living by the promise of the gospel. This gospel declared that Jesus Christ came to save sinners and that in His death and resurrection you have been declared righteous not by your repentance, but by the work of Jesus imparted to you through faith in Him who saves you!

And what follows repentance and faith? Listen now to the word of God in Acts 26:20, “but declared first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance (NKJ).

May God bless you in your life of repentance, even as He sustains you in faith.

Pastor Froh