Thursday evening at our monthly Women of Purpose meeting Sister Denise was the speaker. She told us that God had impressed on her at work one day that His people needed to be renewed. When thinking about the word renew many ideas come to mind; a renewed mind, heart, spirit, etc. With renewal it requires us to first clean out all the sins that have bogged down our hearts and restore within ourselves a right spirit with God. When David wrote Psalm he touched on this very subject, he being a man from God’s own heart and a man of many sins knew what it meant to ask for forgiveness. Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. - Psalm 51:10 (KJV)
There are some out there telling people that they don’t have to repent for their sins and not to take a side on the Baptist/ Pentecostal debate on Salvation I fully recommend one to take advantage of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and approach His throne boldly asking forgiveness for one’s sins. When Jesus died on the cross He made atonement for our sins and keeps us in the modern era from having to sacrifice animals. The shedding of His blood rent the veil that separated us from God which allows us to be able to contact Him personally and have a close relationship. There in my mind would be no other reason why the Bible would instruct us to pray without ceasing. As much as we would all like to deny our sinfulness, it is there we are flesh and as long as we are in this flesh we will sin and sin a lot. Like any Psychiatrist will tell you the first step to solving a problem is first admitting you have one. Yes, Jesus already knows that you are going to sin and what you’re going to do, but He wants to hear you acknowledge you’ve done wrong. The repentance process does not on the other hand give one the license to sin; one can’t live like the devil all week and repent on the weekend only to repeat the process afterwards. God is just to forgive our sins, but only if we ask humbly and have no intention of repeating it.
pray without ceasing, - 1 Thessalonians 5:17
To give an illustration of the renewal process, picture a white heart and the sins of our lives begin to collect on it like a brown and black paper mache until it completely covered; there is no white left. But if we daily acknowledge our sins and ask for forgiveness it allows our heart to be “renewed” like new and white. So today if you have any hidden sins that is interfering with your relationship with God there is no better time than now to do some spring cleaning and reconnect. Don’t wait too long so you won’t have to endure God’s judgment and this applies to me as well. I too have some spring cleaning to do!
“There is no justification without sanctification, no forgiveness without renewal of life, no real faith from which the fruits of new obedience do not grow.”~ Martin Luther
