“FROM THAT TIME JESUS BEGAN TO PREACH AND TO SAY, ‘REPENT, FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND.’” -(MATTHEW 4:17)
You cannot start a new chapter of your life if you keep repeating the old chapter. As we’ve been discussing this week, it is time to heal from the past and turn the page forward.
If you feel stuck, there is something Jesus asks us to do to allow us to move forward.
After forty days in the wilderness, fasting, praying, and resisting the devil, Jesus was ready to begin His ministry and call His first disciples.
He began by telling people to repent.
We’ve made the word “repent” so negative. But it’s not a bad or mean word. The caricature of an angry guy in a robe yelling at people on street corners is not what Jesus did! I want to erase any negative connotations of repentance from your slate.
The Greek word for repent is metanoeoh, which literally means to change one’s mind. Jesus was speaking to people who were stuck in the past, held captive by old failures, wounds, and guilt.
He came to tell us that all can change! He wants us to know His Father is forgiving and sent Him to set captives free.
You need to change your mind and rework your thinking. Our stinking thinking gets us into trouble. Replace that with the truth: Jesus came to let us be healed and forgiven. We don’t need to renegotiate the past; we can’t change it. We need to repent, change our minds, turn away from that which is harming us, and follow Jesus.
The truth will set us free if we will only believe it!
I truly believe someone reading this needs to be set free. This is not a generic Bible study about doctrine or religion. This is a liberating message from the heart of God, telling us how He loves us and wants us to start anew, with fresh wineskins ready to receive the new wine of the Holy Spirit.
The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand…not as far as you think, or as hard to enter.
I pray this word reaches into your heart, and that you repent before the Lord of whatever is holding you back and accept the gift He offers: new life, a fresh start, a new chapter in the book of your life!
