The Opposite Of Karma - Repent

The wages of sin is death. That’s bad enough. But it’s worse. God threatens an eternity in hell as well for all who sin and fall short of the glory of God. You’re permeated with sin through and through. You’re born in it. Thinking that life is a bare minimum of doing what has to be done to keep you from dying a sudden death isn’t the half of it. How can you escape the wrath of God? How can you meet the perfection that God demands so you don’t end up in hell? So you don’t “perish”? That should be the question.

And what is Jesus’ answer? Repent. What does that mean? It’s deeper than a simple five step program on how to be a good neighbor or how to read my Bible or how to pray. It’s what we confess almost every Sunday.

Holy God, gracious Father,

I am sinful by nature

and have sinned against you in my thoughts, words, and actions.

I have not loved you with my whole heart;

I have not loved others as I should.

I deserve your punishment both now and forever.

There’s no self improvement that will work. No lifestyle changes will ever change these facts. I am and will continue to fall short of what God demands until the day I die. God sees me from the inside out. He knows I fall short. For me to think that some people are better than others, that somebody does something to deserve an awful death and others don’t, it’s not really true. Look at it deeper than that. I deserve NOTHING from God, even as a Christian. I am no better than anyone else. God hates what I’ve done. I deserve nothing from Him but wrath. I deserve hell, and I don’t want to go there. I am here to plead for mercy, not to check a box on the attendance chart. I’m here because I need forgiveness. I need grace.

And that’s the essential part of repentance too. Who is telling the people to repent? Why is He telling them this? So that they turn to HIM for that forgiveness. So they don’t look to Him for the magic formula to keep from getting slaughtered by the government, but look to Him for SALVATION. Here’s a completely different theology than “you get what you deserve.” This theology is that Jesus got what you deserved on the cross, and through faith in Him, you get what He deserved.” That’s the second part of repentance, that we look to Jesus for forgiveness. So we continue . . .

But Jesus, my Savior, paid for my sins

with his innocent suffering and death.

Trusting in him, I pray: God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

And what do we hear at the end? “As a called servant of Christ, I forgive you your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Yes, we go back to our baptism, the deepest cleaning, washed in the blood of Christ. We go back to the Supper, the body and blood of Jesus, shed for me, entering me, for the forgiveness of sins. What a strange thing! God dying on the cross! It’s anything but random though. God planned it from eternity. Jesus was perished on the cross, and He came back to life to announce this salvation to us. This isn’t as simple as “Do unto others.” It’s deeper than that. I look to Him who did everything for me, free of charge, on the cross. Jesus is the deepest answer to our deepest need. He is the only remedy from perishing.