Think you’ve got it sorted? Think again!

Every day we’re asking four questions about part of the Bible. Today Bern Leckie answers:

What did I like about today's passage?

“Repent” is a strange word. So churchy. Who else uses it, and who can avoid thinking about strange shouty men with hand painted signs when they hear it? I’ve always wondered if we have only kept using that word, which could be translated much more naturally as “change your mind” or “think again”, because the whole idea of changing our minds is so unsettling. By using this unusual word, one we associate only with saying sorry to God and maybe making a one-time turnaround towards salvation in our lives, I think we’ve managed to keep a lot of discomfort at a distance. Have you repented and called Jesus your Lord and Saviour? Hooray! You’re a Christian bound for heaven. And I believe that.

But I don’t think it was Jesus’ point.

I’m struck here by Jesus stressing that “unless you repent, you too will all perish.” So far, that sounds like a shouty sandwich board man. But what is Jesus telling people to repent, or change their minds, about?

I think he was addressing the popular belief that bad people suffered and good people deserved better. Think again, said Jesus. It’s not the worst sinners who suffer the most, and anyone thinking their survival had to do with them being fine, upstanding, law-obeying people was wrong. Everyone who thought this had to change their mind or perish too.

I love how Jesus talks about, then demonstrates again, what God really wants and why our minds need to change and keep being changed, grown and matured by the Spirit. God wants to grow fruit in us, more than we are currently producing. More than we need just to be peaceful in ourselves. Enough to share with others to change the world and see God’s kingdom come, starting small and always growing.

I’m really loving the contrast, too, between Jesus and Jephthah from yesterday in Judges, who was spiritually powerful but lacking in wisdom. Jesus shows what the combo of love, wisdom and power looks like in practice. How much do we have to change to be like that?

What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

God shares massive amounts of love, wisdom and power with us so that we and the world around us can be transformed. It happens slowly, constantly, like seeds growing into fruit. It does not only require a one-time commitment from us, but a lifetime of development in which we will find that our minds are changing, and we start to see life God’s way.

What am I going to do differently as a result?

Let God do this with me, even more please!

Who am I going to share this with?

My family and other people I follow Jesus with.