Repentance has become known as one of those big church words that scare most people away, before we even take the time to give it any real consideration.  Just hearing the word repentance – causes our mind to shut down and engages our mouth to start making excuses, while our feet are looking for the nearest and quickest get-a-way!

It really does not matter what we call it.  The reality of life is this:  We all need to repent –  u-turn, change direction, do a 180!  Not a single one of us living on this planet is perfect!  We all make mistakes and even though we hate to admit it, we fail to do some of the things that we know we should and end up doing some things that we know we should not!  The Bible calls this – not doing what we should and doing what we shouldn’t – sin!  You can call it whatever you want to call it!

The fact is this:  If you and I are honest with ourselves, we must admit that we mess up and miss the mark!  If we mess up and miss the mark, then we must need to u-turn, change direction, do a 180 – in other words – repent!  To repent is not a bad thing – it is simply an acknowledgement that our life was headed in the wrong direction and a change is now being made to head it in the right direction!  Change so that your life is headed in the right direction is a good thing!

When we repent, u-turn, change direction, do a 180 – God is able to do some amazing things in our lives:  He is able to bring refreshing, which we needed and didn’t even realize we needed!  He is able to bring about restoration and bring us back to a better place than we could ever get ourselves!  And He gives us revival to light our fire from the inside-out, so that we might burn bright for His glory and the blessing of everyone!

God has a plan!  God has always had a plan!  God’s plan is the best plan!  I have a plan!  I like to think that my plan is the best plan, but I have lived long enough to discover that my plan almost never works out exactly like I planned for it to work out!  God’s plan is much better than my plan, so I have decided to throw away my plans and my plans to plan and just work to adopt and live according to the amazing plan of God!

If I am going to lay my plans aside and live according to God’s plan, then I must get comfortable with REPENTANCE!  I think that we church folks are scared of repentance.  But repentance is the only way to lay your plan down, so that you can pick up the plan of God!  When I repent – I change direction!  I repent when I come to a place of realization that I am headed in the wrong direction and I need to turn around and away from that wrong direction and head in the right right direction.  We don’t need to be afraid of repentance.  We need to embrace repentance, because it really is an amazing gift from God that takes us to a place that we could never take ourselves.

Take a little time to look at your life and plans today!  Are you where you need to be and are you doing what you need to be doing?  If we are honest with ourselves and with God – we probably need to do a “u-turn!”  We often start off in the right direction, but get distracted by the frustrations, disappointments and challenges of life and get off of the track that God had for us.  If you have gotten off track, don’t beat up on yourself.  Just admit it and let God help you to repent – turn around and head back toward Him and His amazing plan for your life!

Come back tomorrow and we will take a look at some of the blessings and benefits of repentance!  It really is a good thing, because it is a God thing!