2015 EngAug

AUGUST, 2015 1
THE GOOD NEWS
AUGUST, 2015
MONTHLY CHRISTIAN MAGAZINE
“As it is, I rejoice, not because
you were grieved, but because you
were grieved into repenting…” (2
Corinthians 7:9).
I don’t know what your life has
been like. But I know how you can
be on a fresh, new page and leave
your past behind. Through repentance.
Every good thing God wants
to pour into your heart, your marriage,
your home comes through
repentance. It means change in
every way and at every level! It involves
your mind—recognition of
sin. Your emotions—heart-felt sorrow.
Your will—resulting in a
change of behaviour.
We’ve got to be willing to see
our sin in the mirror. Sin often falls
into three big categories -pride,
pleasure, and priorities. Pride is
sinful, self-centred thinking,
whether it’s pride of position, prestige,
or power. Pleasure is a big
category of sin when we seek it at
the wrong time, with the wrong
person, in the wrong measure, or
in the wrong activity. That applies
to sex, substance abuse, and
“stuff”! Priorities -that’s the good
that’s often left undone and neglected
toward self, others, and
God.
You may be saying, “But I’m totally
a sinner.” Well, so am I. What
should we do about that? Repent!
FIVE MARKS OF GENUINE RE-
PENTANCE
I believe there actually are
measurable evidences of genuine
repentance. Jesus challenged His
hearers to “bear fruits in keeping
with repentance” (Luke 3:8). Repentance
is the root I can’t see, but
if the heart is repentant, there will
be visible fruit on the tree. Here’s
what I mean, taken from 2 Corinthians
7:9-11: “As it is, I rejoice, not
because you were grieved, but because
you were grieved into repenting.
For you felt a godly grief,
so that you suffered no loss
through us. For godly grief produces
a repentance that leads to
salvation without regret, whereas
worldly grief produces death. For
see what earnestness this godly
grief has produced in you, but also
what eagerness to clear yourselves,
what indignation, what fear,

2 THE GOOD NEWS
what longing, what zeal, what punishment!
At every point you proved
yourselves innocent in the matter.”
1) Grief over sin. Verse 9:“You
felt a godly grief.” If you really repent,
you’ll feel grief about the sinful
choices that you’ve made. Job
was a righteous man by human
standards, but after he met with
God he said, “I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes” (Job
42:6). When you come to church,
here’s a way you can know you’re
meeting with God: you have a
sense of your own unworthiness.
It’s possible to see your sin and
feel grief, but not be repentant—
that’s the “worldly grief” described
in verse 10. There’s a rejection of
God in all sin. So if you don’t feel
grief over any of those things,
you’re not repenting. And if you’re
not repenting, you won’t change.
2) Repulsion over sin. Verse 11:
“See what earnestness this godly
grief has produced in you.” The
repentant heart is obvious—there’s
an eagerness to get this business
done with God. Also notice…“what
indignation.” A feeling of strong
opposition. The thing once desired
isn’t attractive anymore.
The prodigal son woke up one
morning in a pig wallow and came
to his senses, “What am I doing
here!?” That’s how we’re supposed
to feel about our sin. Is there anything
in our list of sins that repulses
you? Ask the Lord to give you
genuine, earnest grief and repulsion
of sin.
3) Restitution. Now this is the
key mark of true repentance: restitution.
Notice verse 11, “what zeal,
what punishment!” When repentance
is happening in your life
there’s an energetic pursuit of fixing
the fallout from your sin.
Zacchaeus is the poster-boy for
this. As a tax collector, he had
cheated. When he repented, what
was the first thing he said? “I’ve
got to give the money back. It
doesn’t belong to me.” That’s restitution
that comes from repentance.
You don’t just want to be right with
God, but right with the people you
injured. That’s why Paul commended
the Corinthians’ “eagerness
to clear yourselves” (verse
11).
No matter what you see in the
rearview mirror of life, you can experience
God’s grace and forgiveness.
You can be on a clean page
under the grace of God, but you
can’t be right with God if you don’t
want to be right with the people
your sin has injured.
4) Revival Toward God. There
will be a renewing joy over a restoration
of your relationship with the
Lord. Paul is observing that in the
Corinthians when he says “what
fear” (verse 11). Before, they were
involved in all kinds of sin and
didn’t care what God thought.
“You’ve changed,” Paul says.

AUGUST, 2015 3
Fear of God is the starting place
for revival. When repentance happens,
the joy of the Lord comes
back. This is the place not many
people know to go. But you can go
there. David did after sin and repentance—“Restore
to me the joy
of your salvation” (Psalm 51:12).
5) Moving forward. Here’s the
final mark—moving forward. Looking
back, wishing you had done
things differently, is a symptom of
worldly repentance. But if my grief
is God-focused, then I experience
grace and cleansing. That’s why
Paul says in verse 9, “so that you
suffered no loss through us.” If you
respond to the Word of God,
there’s only a better place with
others and a better place with God
and grace flowing into your life.
It’s easy to spot people who haven’t
repented. They’re living in the
past, filled with regret. “For godly
grief produces a repentance that
leads to salvation without regret”
(verse 10). If I asked you to drive
home and never take your eyes off
the rearview mirror, what would
happen!? But so many people
spend their lives looking in their
rearview mirror. Genuine repentance
frees me from regret! It’s an
awesome provision of God.
HAVE YOU REPENTED?
We’ve all got to have true repentance.
We’ll know it’s true if we
have grief over sin, repulsion over
sin, restitution toward others, revival
toward God and if we’re moving
forward with our life, not looking
back. “Today is the first day of
the rest of my life.” That’s a fruit of
repentance. “I’m going forward
now in God’s grace. I can’t fix the
past, but I can do a whole lot about
tomorrow. I can do a whole lot
about today.”
So, the time is now. If you want
to begin the work of genuine repentance
in your life, pray to God
right now:
Lord, right now, I’m letting go.
I’m letting go of sin, of self, I’m letting
go of private pleasure that
doesn’t honour You. I’m letting go
of bitterness, resentment toward
others, hateful feelings, I’m letting
go of these things, Lord. As best
as I know how, I’m repenting of
them. Produce grief over sin in my
heart. How could I spit in the face
of grace? How could I slap away
the hand of God? I have turned
away and felt the sting of that.
Now I’m turning to You. Cause me
to feel the sweetness of restoration.
Cause me to feel the rightness
of reconciliation to You. Father,
engrave upon my heart lessons
of repentance. How good it is
and how much grace flows to humility
before You. Change me.
Revive me, O Lord. Restore to me
the joy of Your salvation. Revive
me according to Your Word. I pray
this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

4 THE GOOD NEWS
Years ago at Niagara Falls, a
young man was employed as a guide.
Having nothing to do one day, he
moored his boat well above the
falls and lay down in it to rest.
Rocked by the current, he fell
asleep. Swaying in the current, his
boat finally worked loose and began
to drift downstream. Spectators
on the shore, seeing his great danger,
shouted loudly to wake him up.
Still asleep, he was rapidly swept
toward the falls.
The Last Chance
At one point the boat came to
rest against a rock that protruded
in midstream. Seeing their chance,
the bystanders redoubled their
efforts to awaken the sleeping man
by shouting loudly, “Get on the
rock! Get on the rock!”
In the swirling water, the boat
with its sleeping passenger soon
cleared the rock and headed for
the Falls. At last the guide, wakened
by the thundering roar of the
great cataract, plunged helplessly
over the falls to his death.
How terrible! Asleep in the
boat! Calmly and unconsciously
drifting into the very jaws of
death!
Who Else Is Asleep?
Yet how precisely this illustrates
the indifference of people
today — many unconcerned as to
their fatal course, fast asleep in
their sins, perhaps lulled by temporary
pleasures, soothed into false
confidence by their dependence on
a blameless life or religious profession.
All Asleep in the Boat!
“The god of this world [Satan]
hath blinded the minds of them
which believe not, lest the light of
the glorious gospel of Christ, who
is the image of God, should shine
unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
Safe in Christ
Are you safely moored to the
Rock, or are you drifting with the
current? Do you have Christ as
your Saviour, or are you swept
along by a world that is rapidly approaching
destruction? If you are
still unsaved, won’t you wake up to
the danger of going on without
Christ? If you keep putting off being
saved, you may suddenly wake
up too late and find yourself taking
the last, fatal plunge into death
and the agony of a lost eternity.
“Awake thou that sleepest”
(Ephesians 5:14).
“Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shalt be saved”
(Acts 16:31).
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