The Grace of Repentance

Thursday Devotional Thought

Luke 13:3, 5

“No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

There’s a tendency in the corrupt human condition to connect calamity with sin, evil, and wickedness. This was the conclusion of those who spoke to Jesus about…

…the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. Luke 13:1

This was also the conclusion of Job’s companions, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar— that Job had sinned against God in some way to merit his calamities and sufferings.

Jesus snaps both them and us into reality, speaking the same words twice— every man, woman, and child since and including Adam needs repentance. This repentance accompanies saving faith, and it is a grace of God. Were repentance a natural act and a logical conclusion, those speaking with Jesus would have automatically recognized their own need of repentance. Instead, they dismissed their own fallen condition and focused upon the fatal circumstances of the Galileans. They were only doing like their father Adam, who did not repent immediately after his disobedience in the garden but attempted to cover the guilt of his sin with fig leaves, ridiculously attempted to hide from God in the trees when he heard Him, and foolishly attempted to blame the woman, and ultimately God, when confronted with his sin.

True repentance accompanies saving faith so that we can turn from the sin we once loved and embrace the Christ we once rejected. Yet because of the corruption which remain in our mortal flesh, repentance is a grace we must cherish ever and always. After we’ve been saved, we should not only be alarmed by the Lord’s words of repentance, but we should also be humbled by the Lord’s holy character as a Man— recognizing that the best of our prayers and good works must also be repented of when compared to the life of Jesus.

O, my friend, that God may grant us,
Blessed repentance by His grace;
With our eyes always on Jesus
Until we see Him face to face.