Basic Lesson #1: Lifestyle of Repentance (Part 3)

Hi people! I'm finally back to complete this particular series which I felt is a topic that cannot be repeated enough time and again.

Last few weeks have been very humbling for me. One of the things I was reminded about, which is very closely related to this, is got to do with the fact that repentance is necessary, because whether we realise it or not, we live in the world, the world wants to influence us, and many-a-time, the world influences us without us realising it. What is the solution? Having God to influence us more than the world can, and protecting us from the insidious influence of the world. Choosing to let God influence us more than the world can is in fact, repentance.

This doesn't just come from Daniel's mouth. In Romans 12:1, it says "So here's what I want you to do, the Spirit helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you" (The Message, emphasis mine).

You see, whether we realise it or not, the fact we are still in this world, means that "the culture around [us will] always drag [us] down to its level of immaturity". What kind of immaturity, or "ways of the world" (NIV) is this? Besides the obvious bad influences like bad language, hypocrisy, and playing power games, I found the other side to be equally as sneaky and harmful--legalism, placing 'purity' over people, being scared of losing control (because things could go wrong), and trying to manipulate situations (even for good and desirable results). I believe the people who do the latter do so out of good reasons--they are trying to cope with this imperfect world of ours, and trying to make lemonade out of lemons, so to speak. Learning how to 'manage' people, in a way that minimises conflict. All that is actually not too bad, when you think about it. But one reason why the Lord convicted me about it, is because at the end of the day, it is still relying on a lot of fleshly, human methods to get the job done, rather than letting "God bring the best out of [everyone]" and "chang[ing] them from the inside out"; instead of letting us "fix our attention on God", it fixes our attention on methods and the right ways of getting things done. Don't misunderstand: it's the right motives--trying to get people to behave in an honourable way, trying to get good stuff done that is beneficial to all--but really the wrong strength and wrong 'method', so to speak. What God said in Romans 12 speaks readily to us all (and definitely me!): don't "fit into our culture without even thinking". (Man, that's so hard. Sometimes I even do their methods without even realising it!) Instead, "fix your attention upon God...recognise what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it".

Our change will come from the inside out. And at the end of the day, the world will realise they can never produce this kind of purity, this kind of Godliness, this kind of love for God, this kind of joy, and this kind of behaviour. That's because our change comes from the inside out, not the outside in.