Loving to Lose

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
(Philippians 3:8 – ESV)

Too often we speak of repentance as a moral imperative but without grace it cannot be accomplished in the Spirit, for God’s glory, for the long haul. The imperatives of repentance are grounded in the indicatives of the faith God gives us. Holiness is rooted in forgiveness. God’s grace is given to us for repentance and it allows us to respond in faith to Him (Acts 16:14). God is the one changing our minds as we behold Christ and realize Jesus is more beautiful than anything else we would want to hold on to.

I want to talk now of primary repentance and progressive repentance. This is an area where we need more clear teaching, and it can be a real hindrance to some in their understanding of justification and sanctification. Some people seem to know they are sinners who need to repent of sin but they think this means they have to give it all up right then or God will not accept them. However, the first repentance is repentance of self, to repent of our faithlessness. Dropping what we know we have to let go of is first, our trust in ourselves, and then we learn even more of our own miserable sin and the beauty of Him.

We learn repentance while seeing His beauty unfold in our lives. That is progressive repentance. Primary or our first repentance is from and of rebellion in general. That may mean we have to let go of some specific things, yes, but it never means we let go of everything right off the bat, we don’t even know all the sin we are holding onto. It means we are willing to let go, and willing to repent, as God has made us able to do so. Then we do it.

Primary repentance will inevitably lead to progressive repentance. Our first repentance is like being in a war; we surrender, then progressively we begin pulling down the strongholds, deactivating the minefields, turning in our weapons, and destroying the embattlements. Supposed surrender is asking for forgiveness without laying down our arms, like waving a white flag with your gun drawn.

As an example a speaker at a recent conference I was attending said that he had prayed the prayer as a child, and rededicated his life as a teenager, but there was nothing to rededicate, he was still dead in sins, wanting forgiveness but not wanting to repent. He was drunk and doing the usual rebel things people do and praying often at night, sometimes while drunk and sometimes many nights in a row, over and over again for God to come into his heart and save his soul, but still God wasn’t saving him because he did not want to let go of his life. He had not been brought to true repentance.

Repentance unto salvation is not having to clean yourself up so that God can save you, no repentance is the other side of the coin of faith it is the first part that says we are willing (and yes God must make us willing) to lay it all down. We don’t do it all at once; we become willing to do what He asks. We drop our old lives, and the control of our lives as we are willing to trust God, and we pick up new life. We are not immediately cleaned up on the outside but there has been a change on the inside. Not simply wanting to be saved from fire, but a yearning to be close to Him who took the heat for us.

We may cling to Christ and He is enough; the only reason Paul can truly give these things up is because he has truly taken hold of Christ. Instead of just trying to get a hold of God let go of you and cling to Christ. Reckoning that Christ living in us accomplishes more than we can by our own power. The power of grace is greater than the power of grit.

Paul had repented of his old life as good as it was, in a sense, and was still repenting and teaching us that we should repent of those things we think will justify us before God, before others, before ourselves. When we hold on to certain things, and we don’t use our gifts to magnify God’s glory, then they become idols to us, and we become our own God, justifying ourselves. Maybe this is why God has not allowed you to have that one thing you so desperately want, because it would turn you away from Him permanently, so praise God that He knows better than we do just exactly what we need and what we don’t need. Perhaps, as you let go of that thing, that dream, that love, that desire, that idol, perhaps God can redeem that thing for use to magnify His glory. But you must be willing to give it up even if it means you can never have it back. That is true repentance, when God gives us a thirst for His glory, not our greatness.

If you want to give it up to God, if you want to truly repent toward God and receive Christ today, or if you know for sure that you are a Christian and you want to truly repent of some thing, of some sin, if you want a fresh power, than take a fresh look at the beauty of Christ, see His mercy, His goodness, His grace, and you will be able to stop trying, and just give it up.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©