There's a song that I think is in our song books, something like "Did you repent, fully repent?" I've always thought Christians knew what it meant to repent, but apparently for at least one person who reads these bulletins f was wrong. Don't you all go looking around at each other, this is someone who reads it on our web site and has a life choked full of sin.

Let's take this head on. Repentance is not something we need to interpret. You did wrong, and you need to correct that. Not by half measures, or by I-think-this-is-good-enough's, but all the way. If you're not going to repent al the way, then why bother?

In simple terms. You steal something. You give it back. You apologize to those you have hurt and wronged. You ask for forgiveness. Is this hard to do? Certainly, it means you have to ADMIT YOU WERE WRONG. Is this hard to understand? Nope.

You tell a lie. Lies are rarely simple. Now, let's say someone's reputation is shot full of holes because of it, as the lie is passed around as fact. So you go back to the first person you told and you confess to them you lied. Then you hunt down as many people as you can who know the lie and you set them straight. You tell them you lied, and you apologize. To the person you lied about, you ask forgiveness. Is this embarrassing? Sure, you have to ADMIT YOU WERE WRONG to a whole bunch of people. Lies are tricky things, and they spread. If you can nip it off before it gets too far that's all the better, but once it's spread it's STILL YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to fix. YOU caused it. In this case, no, I personally don't think it's good enough to just go forward and say "I lied!" You really need to get out there and set things right. Is that so hard to understand? Not really.

Now, here's what I would like my reader to get a grip on. You were once a Christian, in the true sense of the word. You taught, preached, and lived a life in the light. Then one day you decided to abandon God, family, wife, and children to run off with some other woman. Throwing Godliness to the wind, you started living very worldly. You stink with sin, but let's just talk adultery here. You're never going to get back with your wife, and if I was her I would never take you back either, but that doesn't mean you can't get back in a proper relationship with God. This means you ADMIT YOU WERE WRONG and repent. That does not mean it is OK to live with a new wife. It means you go to your family, your wife, your children, and you apologize. It means you STOP doing the sinful thing you are doing. Nowhere do I read in the bible where someone repents by going on with doing something sinful. They STOP IT. Hard to do? Absolutely. People get their lives tied into knots that armies of boy scouts could not untie. Take a tip from Alexander the Great and the Gordian knot. Just cut it loose. I don't think this is hard to understand, not with passages that clearly show what you are doing is WRONG.

Repentance requires action on our part. It's tine to say "God will forgive us if we repent" which I absolutely agree with, but we have to actually do it. I know we can't always set things right, but in cases where we can we must. If I steal something from you, to repent I must give it back. Giving an apology is not repenting. Not fully. But let me tell you why f know a bit about this. I have lied, and have had to fix things. I have gossiped, I have been hurtful, I have been sinful. I am not perfect either. The difference is I do something about it, and don't wallow in it.

Finally, I have noticed something about disobedient children. Nothing is ever their fault! Everything is rationalized in their mind, how they deserve this or that or in most cases they try to sell you that they're the victim here. Catch a kid in a lie and first they deny they did anything wrong, to the point of being angry. Prove they are lying, and then they always try to turn it around and say it's your fault somehow.

Adults who sin, especially those who KNOW they are in sin, are disobedient children of God. They refer to the church as a denomination to discredit it. They say the teachings are pharisaic and heartless. They claim the church is corrupt, is hypocritical, is extreme. All these things I simply ignore. Why? It's hard to take seriously someone who has a BEAM STICKING OUT OF THEIR EYE. Maybe my reader should think about getting his own life in order, and "repent, fully repent", before worrying about any supposed motes in ours.

Randy