Some Quotes:
“Of all acts of man repentance is the most divine. The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.” - Thomas Carlyle
“It is impossible for a man to be freed from the habit of sin before he hates it…” - Ignatius
“…Sin is what you think it is. Well, it is not. Sin is what God thinks it is…” - John G. Lake
“Any concept of grace that makes us feel more comfortable sinning is not biblical grace…” - Randy Alcorn
“We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin…” - C. S. Lewis
“…Repentance of the evil act, and not of the evil heart, is like men pumping water out of a leaky vessel, but forgetting to stop the leak…” - Charles Spurgeon
“People do not drift toward Holiness… We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” - D.A. Carson
“Nothing hath separated us from God but our own will, or rather our own will is our separation from God.” - William Law
“You are the way you are because that's the way you want to be…” - Fred Smith
“The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.” - Brennan Manning
“Men do not differ much about what things they call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.” - G. K. Chesterton
“The world has lost the power to blush over its vice; the Church has lost her power to weep over it.” - Leonard Ravenhill
“If you will not determine to be pure, you will grow more and more impure.” - George MacDonald
“It's one thing not to sin---it's another not to want to!” - Jacquelyn K. Heasley
“He comes never late who comes repentant.” - Juan de Horozco
“True repentance will entirely change you…” - George Whitefield
“…God …now commandeth all men everywhere to repent…” - Acts 17:30
Ezekiel 18:1-4
Psychologist would persuade you and I today that criminals primarily commit crimes as a result of their past.
We MUST take credit where credit is due.
We are responsible for ourselves and our own actions.
It is not our past to blame for who and where we are today;
Rather, it is our bad moral choices that make us this way.
Besides, there is a simple answer to the critic’s: Be Born Again!
The Blame Game is the way it would seem.
That is, to blame everything that goes wrong on someone or something else.
The story is told by one John Killinger of a manager of a minor league baseball team was so upset with the center fielder’s game that he ordered him off the field and went out in his stead himself. The first ball came in hoping and hit the manager square in the mouth. The second was a high fly that bounced off his forehead. The third was a hard line drive that he hit him hard in the eye. Very angry, he ran to the dugout and grabbed up the center fielder, yelling, “You idiot! You’ve got center field so messed up that even I can’t do a thing with it!”
James 1:14-15 (Amplified): “14 But every person is tempted when he is drawn away, enticed and baited by his own evil desire (lust, passions). 15 Then the evil desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully matured, brings forth death.”
Jeremiah 31:29-34 “29- In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge. 30- But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. 31- Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32- Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day [that] I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: 33- But this [shall be] the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34- And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Therefore Peter said on the Day of Pentecost “38- …Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39- For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, [even] as many as the Lord our God shall call.” – KJV – Acts 2:38-39
REPENT:
II Corinthians 7:1 “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” – KJV
Question: What are you going to do about your guilt?
Feeling guilty about your sin does little or no good unless it motivates you to change!
God wants you to change so you can experience true freedom.
Repentance is being sorry enough to quite!
Sorrow produces repentance and repentance produces change.
Remember the old bumper stickers we had made up? “Repent – Just Do It!
