The Secret Place: 21 Day DevotionalSample

REPENT AND LIVE

Ezekiel 18:32

God is calling us to repent and live. He does not want us to sin and die, He takes no pleasure in that. To understand the importance of turning away from sin and being reconciled to God, we need to understand God's original plan and how sin interferes with it. When we trace the genealogy of sin, we arrive at the creation story. Where God creates the heavens, the earth and everything in between. He then creates all the living things that occupy the land and sea. And finally, He creates man, His masterpiece, male and female He created them in His own image. We were created to have a relationship with God, to honour and obey Him. In the accounts in Genesis we read that God communed with man and gave him power and dominion over the earth and living things. All that God creates is good and pleasing to Him. Nowhere do we read that God creates sin. However, sin comes in through disobedience. “but [only] from the tree of the knowledge (recognition) of good and evil you shall not eat, otherwise on the day that you eat from it, you shall most certainly die [because of your disobedience]” (Genesis 2:17). We see that the absence of living according to God’s instructions (sin) leads to death and so, we are also introduced to the relationship between sin and death. To fully appreciate the dynamic between sin and death we must look at some key elements of the nature of God. Firstly God is pure. The prophet Habakkuk describes God as having ‘eyes that are too pure to look on evil’ and that God ‘cannot tolerate wrongdoing’ (Habakkuk 1:13 NIV). Evil or wrongdoing also has to be understood from the perspective of God our creator. It is God who sets what is evil or wrong, not whether something feels or looks wrong from our personal perspective.

In the creation story we read that God was pleased with his creation. But what happens when God is not pleased with what He has created? God explains this to the prophet Jeremiah (18:3-8 ESV) in a vision; “So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the Lord came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it”. So secondly God, the creator of everything, is well within his rights to destroy what which is not pleasing to him. This is the relationship between sin and death. God is also principled - He is the God of justice. “The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty” (Nahum 1:3 ESV). Those found guilty of sin face the consequence of sin which is death. However, with all this in mind, God in His mercy and His steadfast love has given us a lifeline. Repentance through Jesus. God had been calling the people of Israel to repentance long before Jesus’ sacrifice. The truth is, mankind is too flawed to pursue a repentant life without the help of the Holy Spirit. Jesus provides the only real means to turn away from sin and it is the power of grace that enables us to live a godly life.

So rely on Jesus. Repent and live!