Reflections on Repentance and Forgiveness

 The glorious pictures of the Gospel of Jesus Christ abound! Open up eyes and hearts to this wondrous display of glory lighting up the darkness here like a fireworks show! All these glimpses of glory just whisper to us of what is to come when all is said and done on this earth in our small, moment of time. We need God's Word directing us, His Spirit leading us, and his beauty inspiring us. All of creation is singing a lovely song of glory to the King of kings. The sun and moon and stars know not what they are doing, but they do what they were designed to do and so they give glory to God and so proclaim his attributes. However, as image-bearers, we humans have a glorious privilege to not just do what God designed us to do, but to behold him and embrace his design with joy as we also come to know him intimately. 

In every moment of our lives his presence pursues us with grace and mercy. We hardly realize it though for we simply enjoy God's gifts without thinking of him the giver. Yet all these gifts were meant to point us to God so we could know the invisible one. We take up God's Word and then look at creation (the illustrations) for God loves giving his children picture books just like we do! In the Word and in the pictures we see Christ! We also see echoing over and over what will come for those who love him. God calls us to gather together as believers. So we do every week. We stop our own activities and we gather ourselves and our little ones up and head to "church". Do we realize what we are living and echoing each week? We arrive to worship the King of glory, but then all comes to an end and we go back home. Things feel anticlimactic as though something is missing. It is because something is missing! We are living the echo and the shadow  of what is to come when all blood-bought believers will be gathered together by God to worship Him around his throne! On that day we will realize what all our echos and shadows were pointing to. On that day we will go from glory to glory with no sense of loss or disappointment for we shall behold Christ and see him as he is! 

And a new wondrous picture I have come to see recently is that of repentance and forgiveness. In this life, I think the greatest thing we can ever do is to repent before God and people agreeing with God about our true heart condition. Then as others repent, the greatest things is for us to show them the mercy of God and forgive them as God has forgiven us. For that is the heart of the Gospel....ruined sinners repenting before God and the Almighty one stooping to forgive. Our repentance here on earth to each other echoes a coming day when we will stand before Christ's throne. I do believe that when we see him our own souls will be laid bare and we will desire to confess to all and to Christ our true heart condition. We will not wear masks in Heaven, but we will be joyfully truthful. Think of that moment! All saints from all ages before Christ in true repentance and confession, proclaiming him Lord of lords and King of kings. We will be crying, proclaiming, repenting, forgiving, and reconciling with brothers and sisters. And there will be no anticlimactic moments. No need for unnecessary confessions or lists and lists of deeds because it will be about the heart. And when all is said and done, Christ will wipe away every tear from our eyes. That is what our repentance and forgiveness echoes now. This is why there is no place in heaven for someone who does not want to forgive, because that is what heaven is: a big party before Christ of love and forgiveness to his glory. For this is what the cross accomplished and what the empty tomb proclaims that God runs to ruined sinners to forgive them and welcome them into his presence. Let us be those ruined sinners who repent here and now and agree with the Word of God for then we will also experience the wonder of God's forgiving grace as he welcomes us into his arms forevermore.