The Kingdom is at Hand – Quit Sinning!
We’ve been reflecting on Jesus’ words in Mark 1: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14–15 ESV)
Repent. There’s no need to go on in your sinful ways. The time has come. Quit them! And live in freedom!
A shoplifter once wrote to a store he had robbed, saying, “I’ve just become a Christian, and I can’t sleep at night because I feel guilty. So here’s $100 that I owe you.”
Then at the bottom he wrote PS: “If I still can’t sleep, I’ll send you the rest.”
I think many of us live our Christian lives this way. I’ll give some of myself to God, but I’ll hang onto the rest. I’ll do a bit of good, but I won’t quit my lusting or my fraud or my greed or my gossip.
True Repentance's Action
Jesus said the time is at hand. The kingdom is here. REPENT. To repent means more than just feeling sorry about your wrongdoing. It means more than just trying to make up for it and then going on in it. Repentance means turning away from your old ways.
Imagined that it’s 1947, and the royals had decided to make a stop at your home. Imagine how the household would have behaved! You would have all put on your best clothes, made sure the place was spotless, made some nice food!
Now imagine a little boy in the family started kicking a soccer ball around the house where everybody was sitting and before they knew it, the ball flew across the room and knocked a cup of tea from (the then) Princess Elizabeth’s hands spilling all over her royal dress.
Mom would have been livid! And I’m sure there would have been much talk about saying sorry to the Princess for what had happened.
Now imagine mom said, ok, you’ve said sorry, here’s the ball, carry on! Go on as before, hopefully this time it won’t happen!
That would be crazy. Instead, the message would have been stop it! Don’t do that. This not how we behave.
Now, it’s a bad metaphor overall. Our faith is not a matter of tiptoeing around a stuck-up royal God trying not to spill his tea. It’s just not. Our faith is a living relationship with a God of love! But I hope that that story illustrated the meaning of repentance. When we are doing things that offend God, when we are living in ways that dishonour Him, when we are disobeying and doing our own thing, we need to repent, and this doesn’t mean saying “sorry LORD” and then going back to the same things. It means quitting. It means saying I don’t live that way anymore because I belong to the king!
Call to Repentance
I wonder today, if we’re honest with ourselves, if we need to hear Jesus’ simple command: repent. Maybe you’ve never done this, or maybe you have but you’ve backslidden in your faith and you’re back living in sinful ways.
Is today the day you seek help for that addiction?
Is today the day you speak to somebody about that sin problem you can’t seem to stop?
Is today the day you say you know what, I can’t go on living this double-life?
The kingdom is here. A better way is here. The King is here and he offers us a new life, a new purpose, a new joy, if we’ll repent and come to Him.
