“Entering into the deep pain of our souls in order to see how subtly but stubbornly we keep our distance from one another in an effort to protect ourselves from that pain is an approach to understanding relational sin that is not widely considered…
We’ve been called into relationship with God so we may relate more deeply with others…
When openness to Scripture, to the whispering of God’s Spirit, and to honest feedback from fellow Christians leads to an awareness of relational sin, then, and only then, is deep repentance possible…
It requires that we spot some of the specific ways we protect ourself as we communicate with our mate, interact at a committee meeting, or socialize after church, and that we change those ways of relating because we want to move toward others regardless of personal risk.
Once we understand the concept of relational sin, we repent by radically shifting our motivation and direction from self-preservation to trust on the basis of the belief that Christ has given and is preserving our life. The fruit of repentance is a changed style of relating that replaces self-protective maneuvering with loving involvement.
In Hosea 14:1-3 [which we just went over a couple of weeks ago in small group – ack!], God tells us exactly how to repent:
‘Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God. Your sins have been your downfall! Take words with you and return to the LORD. Say to him:
‘Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips. Assyria cannot save us; we will not mount war-horses. We will never again say ‘our gods’ to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion.’
‘Return to the LORD your God’
Every effort to change must involve at its core a shift in direction away from dependence on one’s own resources for life to dependence on God…The Christian’s call is to relationship, to loving, non-defensive involvement with others…
‘Take words with you’
The more thorough our awareness of sin, the more complete our repentance. Because we’ll never see ourself exactly as we are until Heaven, the prayer that God cleanse us from secret faults is always appropriate. But it must never be an excuse for not exploring our problem with sin.
‘Forgive all our sins’
Repentance is a turning away from sin that’s made possible by God’s willingness to forgive us…We will genuinely love only as we deal with the sin in our heart…
‘Receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips’
So many of our efforts to change have a hidden but definite agenda…True repentance, on the other hand, is energized by the hope of knowing and worshipping God more richly…We will be driven to true worship only as we give up on all earthly hopes of finding life (which requires that we face our disappointments in every relationship), and grow in our understanding that there is life in Christ and nowhere else.
‘Assyria cannot save us; we will not mount war-horses’
Israel was threatened with national collapse…a pact with Assyria to protect them combined with their own military efforts might win the day…
When the essential well-being of my soul is attacked, I must not protect myself, even though an effort to preserve myself from destruction seems like the right thing to do.
To do so leads to death.
Christ could not have contradicted natural wisdom more completely when He taught that life is found by making no effort to keep it.
Israel turned to Assyria and war-horses for her national survival.
We resort to self-protective maneuvering in our patterns of relating to ensure our personal survival.
Repentance requires a sincere admission that whatever we’re depending on for life will let us down.
Assyria cannot save us.
Self-protection is futile.
We will therefore shift our direction away from depending on our own resources to vulnerably trusting God. If He fails to come through, then we’ll be destroyed. That is the recognition that leads to change.
‘We will never again say ‘Our gods’ to what our own hands have made’
This is the core of repentance. Thirsty people are invited to come to Christ. But because we’re not only thirsty but also foolishly rebellious, we grab our shovels and run into the wilderness to dig our own water supply. We’re determined, with all the intensity of someone struggling to survive, to maintain control over our own welfare.
Trust does not come easily to fallen people.
But it must come.
And its development requires a clear and decisive break with self-sufficiency. Doing so will seem like suicide, but it is the path to life.
‘Whoever loses his life for me will save it.’ (Luke 9:24)
‘In You the fatherless find compassion’
Fatherless children are unprotected, vulnerable to the point of helplessness. Repentance leads us into an experience of our disappointment and aloneness that crushes us with a pain that cannot be relieved. But when we trust God in our helplessness enough to move toward other people simply because that is God’s will for us, then the reality of His compassion slowly begins to enter our soul. As we walk a path that seems to lead toward death, a sense of life quietly grows within us.
When repentance moves us from self-protection to obedient trust, then God moves in changing power.
He heals our waywardness (Hosea 14:4) so our compulsive desire to sin no longer masters us.
He deepens our roots (vs 5), creating a new stability.
He grants us splendor and an appealing fragrance (vs 6); our life becomes attractive.
People dwell in our shade (vs 7), suggesting that others are blessed by our strength.
We learn that our fruitfulness comes from God (vs 8), and our heart worships Him with gratitude and love.”
Inside Out, pgs 194-200
