Repentance is not something we really like to talk about unless it is aimed at someone else.
Why?
Because we really do not want to deal with the issues in our own soul. If we can point the finger at someone else’s wrong doing and demand repentance from them it makes us look better and feel better.
But we are not.
Pursuing personal repentance is the only way to clean up our lives and live in the peace of the presence of God. To do this we can follow the model of the Ninevites. Jonah Chapter 3 describes what they did and shows us what it takes to repent.
For anyone to repent it takes God telling us what is right and what is wrong. Jonah was sent to Nineveh for that purpose. Next it takes an acceptance of that message, a faith that what God is saying is right. The Ninevites did that. They believed the message Jonah preached… a message God had given him. (There have been many people that have heard the message only to rejected it and never repent.) Believing it means you are willing to go to the next step and take a long hard look inside your own soul, (not someone else’s) deal with the sin that is there and do something about it. It brings you to asking God to forgive you and to a willingness to turn from it.
The Ninevites did this… and that is why God relented. He decided not to destroy them. Instead he forgave them because they repented and turned from their wicked way.
That’s compassion.
I am thankful for God’s compassion…. it is what motivates Him to forgive us.
It is why repentance is an option for the human race.
“”When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them and he did not do it.” Jonah 3:10
For more on this listen to the message “Go Figure – What would it Take?” @
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