Repentance

What Really Happened in the Garden

God created the first human, male and female, as a being like himself with whom he could share his life and his creation. But the disobedience of the first humans introduced shame, which drove them away from God and hindered them from agreeing with God about their sin and returning to him. This is always the effect of shame, which comes from us, not from God.

Sin, Offense, Guilt and Shame–Definitions, God’s Work and the Social Order.

Defines the common sets of terms pertaining to sin, offense, guilt, shame and honor, with a discussion of God’s work and initial comments on the importance of their confusion in maintaining the social order.

You Are Not the One to Build, Part 3: God Making Peace with the World Through the Most Notorious Sinners!

Linked text to accompany the third in a series of videos about God’s gifts and callings for people, which he sometimes gives to notorious evildoers. Discusses Moses, King David and Saul of Tarsus, who literally got away with murder. Or did they?

Encouragement, good and bad, and the importance of “Today”

When God told the people to go in and he would give them his promise “Today,” they did not trust he was good. So they believed their fears instead. As a result, they could not go in, as he had said, “tomorrow.”

You are not the one to build…

A summary of my calling and life direction. I am becoming comfortable with the idea that most of the positive effect of my life will occur after it is over and that, among humans, I will receive no credit for it.

The Fruit of Righteousness and the Fruit of the Spirit

When Jesus says that he has chosen us to bear fruit that will last, the fruit he has in mind is the fruit of the Spirit–that is, the work the Holy Spirit does within us as we yield to him to make us like Christ. It is not our work, our “fruits,” at all–it is all his work.

God’s Patience and Our Repentance, 2 Peter 3:9

God is slow to bring the day of justice because he is patient, determined to give us all the time we need to repent and return to him. If we do not, it will be our choice, not his, to remain in the present world when he removes his care from it and it disintegrates under the weight of sin.

Repentance Series Index

An index to the series of blog articles on the subject of repentance.

Anger

I write this post to myself. I was once a very angry man. But I believed I now had anger under control. More recently, I’m not so sure. Manipulative people and manipulative institutions both deliberately goad the anger of those they want to control–anger is a great motivator. The media, celebrities, politicians, organizations and advertisers do the same thing. Other people, though, habitually but unconsciously manipulate by continually rehearsing their angry reveries for others to hear, wishing either to bring their hearers into their angry world or to intimidate by fear of what they might do in anger. And I am weak to all of these ploys. So I present the following study, which consists only of quotations from Scripture about human anger, its causes and antidote.

Foundational Repentance and Falling Away, Hebrews 6:1-6

Hebrews 6:1-6 has nothing to do with losing our salvation through sinful acts. Instead, it teaches that we must repent from our rebellion and from our own dead works as a way of becoming acceptable to God. Further, when we do sometimes fall back into relying on our own works, we cannot repent of this in our own power. God must provide both the initiative and the power.