Recently, I ran across a book by John Piper titled, What Jesus Demands from the World, and have found myself returning to it over and over again. Probably because I am a person who is wired for challenge. In fact, the greater and harder the challenge, the more I will push myself. I imagine this attitude comes from growing up in a family who always told me, "Doug, there is nothing you can't accomplish if you set your mind to it and work hard enough." That sentiment is a double-edged sword of course. It is true that if I focus and work hard enough there is a lot I can accomplish in life. However, it is also true that there so much more I simply can't accomplish no matter how much I focus or how hard I work. Everyone has limits and I have learned mine via some painful lessons along the way.
But I still love the challenge Jesus presents. His first challenge is to be born again. Born of the Spirit. Born to new life in the midst of our old lives. This can only happen by God's Spirit moving in our hearts. All we contribute to the "birth process" is surrender. Submission. The second demand Jesus makes is for us to repent. The essential message Jesus preached while he lived on earth is summed up in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 4, verse 17, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Now the really sad thing about this message is that it was originally intended to be a message of hope. It was good, even great news for the people who received it! It was a message of salvation, of rescue, of deliverance for a people who were living under oppression and tyranny and persecution. Sadly, this message is not seen as good news anymore. Too many of us have had the experience of listening to angry preachers over the course of our lives using this message to threaten us with hell. We associate the word with hellfire and brimstone. With judgment. With punishment. But the demand of Jesus is different.
Repentance is an internal change of the mind and heart. It is a reorientation of our desires and will. It is a radical shift from self-centeredness to God-centeredness. And it isn't easy. It isn't even possible without us submitting to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Further, it isn't a one time thing. It happens over and over again as the Christian seeks to follow Jesus more faithfully each day. Like the image above, the journey of repentance takes us on all kinds of paths, many of them spiraling deeper and deeper as God plumbs the depths of our souls in order to transform us from within. God is not content with superficial change. He isn't after surface level behavior modification. God wants to give us a new heart. Literally! He wants to replace our DNA with His DNA. He wants to give us a soul that is shaped by His love and grace and mercy. This is what repentance is all about.
But far too many of us see it as an action we have to perform. We equate it with the feelings of shame and embarrassment and remorse we feel when we know we've done something wrong. We think because we feel bad that we must need to repent and the result is a form of white-knuckle sobriety when it comes to sin. And we can only hold the forces within us at bay for so long before the cordon breaks.
True repentance means experiencing change on a level so deep that we begin to see God as our most precious treasure. He begins to dominate the horizons of our lives. Obeying His will becomes a joy. Following in His footsteps becomes our path to peace. Listening to His voice becomes sweeter than any song. In the words of Piper, "This is the demand of Jesus to every soul: Repent. Replace all God-dishonoring, Christ-belittling perceptions and dispositions adn purposes with God-treasuring, Christ-exalting ones." Not because God is an egotist but because He alone is worthy of all our praise.