 From Dr. TimothyKEY THREE - REPENTANCE
This brings us to the repentance part of praying. The rest of 1 John 1:9 says “… and cleanses us from all unrighteousness!”
What does God do that brings about cleansing? Go to Hebrews 12 and you will find it: Chastening or scouring out that which is impure! God will chasten us to bring us to the point that we no longer want “it” to be a part of our life! It is at that point that we repent; we change our minds about tolerating the impurity, about participating in the impurity, about making room for the impurity being dealt with!
For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.
For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter. 2 Corinthians 7:10-11
Prayer for cleansing must include repentance. In prayer, repentance is a declaration of changing your mind, thought, purpose and views about a thing. Repentance is to have another mind about a matter. Before repentance is a manifestation, declaring repentance to God in prayer establishes the reality to be manifested. In other words, before a changed reality can take place, the words of your lips must establish your will to be in agreement with God for this change to take place!
Notice also that repentance is required for “clearing yourselves” to take place! Before a vehement, zealous desire for righteousness that replaces the impurity can develop within your heart, repentance must take place! Prayerful repentance is declaring a willful decision to God that your choice is to cease and desist moving in a sinful direction (or the doing of thing(s) sinful) and to go in God’s direction and do God’s thing(s) and asking His help to accomplish it! Just as the Disciples said, “Lord we believe, help our unbelief!”
Repentance comes from a godly sorrow. When you are finally sick of the impurity, you will repent. Until then, you won’t. It is just that simple. Now then, what will make you “sick” of any given impurity? When you see the reality of what it does to or against God - Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Remember when our moms used to tell us, “God is watching what you do even when I can’t see what you are doing”? There is so much more truth to that than we know!
See Isaiah 43:24. When you realize what your sin forces upon God you will want to repent!
Repentance is the result of two things: 1) God’s conviction process that brings us to the point of 2) being sick and tired of some iniquity (force of sin) dominating our life!
Instead of “sick and tired”, perhaps I should have said, being appalled and horrified at how we have given some aspect of authority over our lives which belongs only to Jesus Christ our Lord to other some power!
This really hit home with me in 2002. For years I had wanted not only to quit smoking but to be free of tobacco altogether. I had quit several times before only to return to that addiction time and time again and each time I could explain the circumstances of my resuming smoking cigarettes but I could not explain why I was willing to do so! Finally – in 2002 – upon hearing a sermon by a TV preacher one day, I realized that I had given to those cigarettes a realm of authority that in truth belonged only to Jesus Christ! For years I had prayed and prayed and prayed about wanting to quit smoking.
But it was only when I heard God’s Word in a sermon about being obedient to God’s directives to rid my life of all enemies to His authority was I able to pray in response to His Word and humble myself to surrender my rights and change my thinking on the matter.
It happened so rapidly that an onlooker would likely miss the process that took place in the span of some 15 minutes that day. First of all; the keys to the kingdom manifested in proper sequence. I heard God’s Word THEN I prayed in response to what God’s Word said.
Then I went through a conviction process (or perhaps I should say that the conviction process was completed) whereby God brought me to the place that I was literally horrified at what I had been doing - - stealing from Him the authority over my life that belonged only to Him and giving that portion of authority over my life to some other power – tobacco!
At the point that I was appalled at what I was doing, my choice was simple and easy, I prayerfully returned that authority to Christ Jesus and stated that if I ever wanted a cigarette again I would ask Him first! From the moment I repented and transferred that realm of authority back to Lord Jesus until this moment nearly 10 years later I have been free from cigarettes and all tobacco! I had not one craving or “nicotine fit” nor have I so much as reached for my shirt pocket to grab a smoke! Not only that, but in my mind as well as in my body it was as if I had never even been a smoker – ever! In other words, I not only was enabled to quit, I was set free!
But this would never have happened if I had not repented! Repentance if crucial in purifying our hearts!
When we are made clean, we are then free of what once made us captive to “that” sin! To be truly clean means to be absent any contaminants and if the contaminants are gone there is nothing left to induce us to sin in that given area!
For example: If a man’s heart is cleansed from sexual lust he will have control of his eyes! He will speak entirely differently about sexual conduct and he will also speak entirely differently about women altogether! Discretion will be in control of his thoughts and words so that the fruit of his lips and the fruit of his conduct are pure, showing forth a clean heart and a clean conscience!
Now while there may be more to deal with in any given situation of impurities in the heart, if a saint will apply these three “keys of the kingdom” he or she will find that their path to moral/spiritual purity and freedom are become unlocked and opened up to them! What more may be needed in any given case will be revealed by the Holy Spirit as you are faithful to apply these three basic “kingdom keys”.
I am sure that we will have more to come on this in the future, but for now this concludes this series on “Pure Hearts, Removing Impurities”.
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Many Blessings!
Dr. Timothy
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