Repent Small

By D’Ann Davis

“When you discipline a man with rebukes for sin, you consume like a moth what is dear to him; surely all mankind is a mere breath!”

Psalm 39:11

Little by little sin, like yeast, leavens the whole dough. Few of us make one big decision to build our lives on sin. Most of us make little decisions here and there as we increasingly harden ourselves to the Spirit’s call. Little decisions turn into big ones, and before we know it, we have built our lives around our idols.

In the midst of our sin, God is still merciful and compassionate, wishing none of us to perish (2 Peter 3:9). In His kindness He leads us to repentance, Romans 2:4 instructs. Our loving Father intervenes and disciplines us for our sins as He draws us back to Him. In this process, the psalmist tells us, He “consumes like a moth” what is dear to the sinner. What a severe mercy this is! Merciful in that He is bringing us home at all. Severe in that what we hold dear is consumed. The more we have built our lives around sin, the greater this devastation is.

One thing I try to continually preach to myself and to our ministry participants is to repent small so that we do not have to repent big. Daily repentance is painful. It is a crucifying of the flesh, a dying to self. But no daily repentance sting hurts as badly as a life dedicated to sin that must be consumed to be corrected. When we forgo our healthy relationships for sinful ones, reject time with the Lord for time with our sin, sacrifice our ministry and witness for the thrills of instant gratification, and arrange our lives in a manner conducive to our idolatry, then the rebuke and discipline required are of a far greater measure. We paint ourselves into a corner where now all ties must be cut, assets divided, phones rendered, numbers changed, jobs forfeited, areas of town avoided, or marriages devastated by disclosure. This pain can be excruciating, but it is soul-saving.

The psalmist comments on the fact that man is a mere breath. We are not God, our idols are not God, and our sinful pursuits will not last. They are not greater than God’s power to remove them or His will to redeem us from them. If we are so finite that we are a mere breath, how much more fleeting and vain is our sin! Let’s be a people who understand the folly of serving any master other than the Lord our God, Alpha and Omega. Let’s trust His hand as He removes that which keeps us from Him, even that which is dear to us. Let’s repent small that our lives might be founded on the cornerstone of Christ and not the sinking sand of sin. Let’s trust His goodness when He lovingly disciplines us, knowing that despite the pain it is for our good. He is a perfect Father who assures us, “For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives” Hebrews 12:6.

“Dear Lord, thank You for Your gracious hand that wounds us to heal us. Please help us repent of our sin daily that our lives might not be built around sin, but around You. Please consume that which is dear to us if it keeps us from You. Help us to trust Your hand, knowing You are good. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.”

The Love in the Law

By Samuel Parrish

"For I find my delight in your commandments,
    which I love.
I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love,
    and I will meditate on your statutes."

Psalm 119:47-48

Have you ever tried one of those “Read the Bible in a X” plans? By now, I think there is an app for every possible way through it. Some have you reading in ten different books that seamlessly work together to tell the work of God and eventually make up the whole thing. The ones I started with early in my walk with Christ were always straight through, Genesis to Revelation. I would get through the first half of Leviticus just in time to want to scream “I get it! You want them to do what you say!” and then give up. 

These yearly treks through the first 100 or so chapters of the Bible would leave me baffled when I would read other places in the text. Psalm 119, for example, is a love song about the laws of God. A song about rules. The imprints of my spiral notebook on my forehead were a pretty good indicator of how far I was away from singing about rules. 

I had seen the Northern Lights on a cold night in the Scottish isles. I had watched my sisters grow up and marry wonderful men. There were impossible healings, miraculous births, rescues from certain death, and overwhelming moments in God’s creation. Those were the things that made me want to sing. Not Leviticus. 

Sometimes though you just need to keep reading. Verse 21 says that those who forget the law are judged. 37 says that the law filters what is treasured and what is worthless. In 61, the law is comfort during times of suffering and despair. How does a bunch of rules cause so much joy in the heart of the Psalmist? If you’ve ever worked with babies, you already know the answer. 

The number one way to get a newborn to sleep is a really tight swaddle. From the outside, having your arms and legs all bundled up looks unbearable, but for that child, it is the ultimate comfort. The world is new, loud and scary, and that blanket represents safety and care. And now I think I’m just about ready to sing about Leviticus.

The newborn isn’t wrong: the world really is loud and scary. Sin in our hearts and in the world calls louder and more creatively as we journey through this life. Many of us who have chased those voices have seen first hand how empty the promises of sin are and desperately want something else. Something more. 

And we have a Father who has exceedingly and abundantly more for us if we follow him. 

In that moment, Leviticus ceases to be a list of annoying no’s and explodes into the infinitely beautiful YES of a Father who wants our best and sacrificed his son so that we would have the promise of something more. 

So, do you see love in the Law?

Is the call of obedience still a burden for you or is it the source of joy and comfort the Psalmist shows us it can be?

The same God who gave us his word wants to give us a love for it; we just need to ask. 

Hardened Sinners

By D’Ann Davis

“Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God. For the spirit of whoredom is within them, and they know not the Lord.”

Hosea 5:4

Ephraim and Israel were guilty of grievous sin against the Lord. They had exchanged the truth of God for a lie and had worshipped the creature over the Creator, much like what is described in Romans 1. Instead of being a light to other nations representing God’s holiness, love, deliverance, and sovereignty, God’s people had jumped in bed with the idols of the other nations. Throughout the book of Hosea God continually compares Israel’s idolatry to whoredom. Like an unfaithful spouse, the people had forgotten their first love.

Israel had gone so far in their sin that they were now operating under the noetic effects of sin. This effect is the distortion of thinking and hardening that happens when we sin against the Lord. The more we sin against Him, the less we see the grievous nature of it, the less godly sorrow we have, the less we care, and the more shame we feel. In our ashamed and hardened posture, we find it difficult if not seemingly impossible to return to Him. The deeper this hardening runs, the less we care about it. We find ourselves in a nasty cycle of apathy, sin, and shame. Our deeds do not permit us to return to the Lord.

We are lost without Him as it is, but when we consider the noetic effects of sin, it is a wonder any of us ever returns to Him. Thankfully though, we are loved by the God of salvation. In our worst state, He loves us still. “But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Knowing we needed a sacrifice and propitiation for our reconciliation to Him, He sent His Son Jesus to die for us, on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him and be reconciled to Him (2 Corinthians 5:18-21). God not only saves us from our sin, but He also saves us from our blindness and apathy toward the weight of that sin! He takes our hearts of stone and gives us hearts of flesh, according to Ezekiel 36, and He puts His Spirit within us that we might keep His commands. We truly serve a loving, initiating, compassionate God.

So let us know Him and seek Him while He may be found. Let us cast aside the sin that so easily entangles and run the race set before us as Hebrews 12:1 exhorts us to do. Let us surrender our sin and our apathetic understanding of it in exchange for a godly sorrow that leads to life and repentance instead of death (2 Corinthians 7:10). Let us repent of our whoredom and return to our first love.

Dear Lord, we have all sinned against You. We pray that You would continually draw us close to You and convict our hearts, that we might not be hardened toward You and Your love. Thank You for making a way for us to be reconciled to You through Jesus Christ Your Son. Restore to us the joy of our salvation oh God, that we might love and serve You all of our days. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.