God and Me-Advent Repentance

The words "advent" and "repentance" are two really churchy sounding words, words that get glossed over by a lot of people in a lot of ways. Some people have heard those words a few hundred times and when asked would probably say that they know what they mean but when pressed would struggle to define them. Some people would say that they have no idea what those words mean, maybe something to do with religion? And some people would be able fire off definitions for both words but would be unable to apply those words to their own lives. And all of those people would be missing the point.

Advent is a season, a period of waiting for something, usually used to describe the weeks leading up to Christmas. It's a time frame; it has parameters of when it starts and when it stops. It can lead to specific behaviors like decorating a Christmas tree, wrapping presents, or buying gifts. Advent's truest purpose though was preparing the way for the Lord Jesus to come to earth and to ultimately come into our hearts. In a physical way, God directed the scene for His birth by filling a woman with child and a manger with hay. Later on, some 30 years later, God provided a donkey for the King and a road laid with palm branches. In a spiritual way, while the ancient Isrealites were waiting for a Messiah, God used the Old Testament prophets and John the Baptist to share powerful images about what the end of their advent would look like.

And God does the same thing today. He spiritually prepares our hearts. He desires for our hearts to be places where Jesus lives and dwells constantly, where we allow Him to cover our sins with His death and where we work to change our hearts to be more Christlike.

That's were repentance comes in. Repentance is saying "I'm wrong." Repentance is putting down your pride. Repentance is changing your behavior. The current advent season, while a time to prepare our homes for Christmas, is a time to prepare our hearts for Jesus. It means repenting, either for the first time or for the thousandth. It means asking God to show you what things you need to repent of. Sometimes, that's easy because you know how messed up your life really is. However, more often than not, we all think our lives are just fine, that we don't have any major problems and therefore have no need for repentance. But what if our hearts aren't quite as perfect as we think they are? Pray a quick prayer to God, asking Him to reveal any areas in your life that you need to rearrange in order to make room for what Jesus wants to do.

This is essentially the sermon our minister preached on Sunday. He followed it with a song I thought was very powerful because of its simple words and application of repentance beyond just lying, stealing, violence, and the like. Some of the words that really got me were repenting of domesticating God into someone who looks just like me, repenting of fake righteousness, and repenting of wanting more things all the time. Anyway, please click on over to the song I Repent as sung by Derek Webb. It's a great way to apply the season of Advent to your life.