Repentance is one of the most positive of all words. John the Baptist centered his preaching on repentance (Matt. 3:2, Mark 1:4, Luke 3:3). Jesus also preached repentance, commanding His disciples to do likewise (Mark 1:14–15; Luke 24:47). The angel predicted that_the Messiah would save His people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). The requirement for this salvation would_be repentance.

To repent means to stop going one direction, to turn around completely, and to go the opposite way. Repentance involves a dramatic and decisive change of course. God urges us to repent when the path we are taking leads to destruction. Repentance will save us from disastrous consequences! What a wonderful word! How comforting that the Creator loves us enough to warn us of impending danger!

Our problem is that we think of repentance as something negative. When we recognize our sin, we prefer to “rededicate” our lives to God. We may even tell others we have resolved to be more faithful to God than we were before we failed Him. Yet the Bible does not speak of rededicating oneself. It speaks of repentance! Repentance indicates a decisive change, not merely a wishful resolution. We have not repented if we continue in our sin!

Repentance involves a radical change of heart and mind in which we agree with God’s evaluation of our sin and then take specific action to align ourselves with His will. A desire to change is not repentance. Repentance is always an active response to God’s word. The evidence of repentance is not words of resolve, but a changed life.

Taken from http://www.blackaby.org/ .

At any time, the receptiveness of your heart will determine your response to God’s word (Luke 8:5–18). If your heart is like the trampled ground, hardened by the sin of bitterness and unforgiveness, you will be unable to accept a message from God. Though you hear the words of the message, you will remain unchanged. If your heart is like the shallow soil on top of a rock, you will accept God’s word in your mind, but the truth will not penetrate your heart to make a difference in your actions. A heart like thorny soil is a life that is distracted by the cares of the world; the pursuit of earthly pleasures prevents God’s word from taking hold and producing righteousness. The heart that is like good soil receives a word from God, applies it, and brings forth fruit in due time. This is the heart that Jesus desires in us, for the fruit will be a Christlike life.

Any time you hear a word from God, whether through Bible reading, prayer, or worship, the way you respond will depend on how you have cultivated your heart (Hos. 10:12). How do you develop a heart that is like good soil? Repent of any bitterness, anger, or unforgiveness that is hardening your heart. Meditate on God’s word until it enters deep into your heart and not just your mind. When you read or hear a word from God, apply it to your life and let God bring His word into reality in your life (Gal. 6:9). Protect your lifestyle. See that you don’t devote all of your energy to worldly concerns, rather than to pursuing your relationship with God. The condition of your heart will vary, depending on how you cultivate it. If it was receptive to a word from God yesterday, this does not guarantee it is receptive today. Daily prepare your heart for the word God has for you!

Taken from http://www.blackaby.org/ .

I know when apostolic passion has died in my heart. It happens when I don. t spend my quiet time dreaming of the time when Jesus will be worshiped in languages that aren’t yet heard in heaven. I know it. s missing from my life when I sing about heaven, but live as if earth is my home. Apostolic passion is dead in my heart when I dream more about sports, toys, places to go and people to see, than I do about the nations worshiping Jesus. I have lost it, too, when I make decisions based on the danger involved, not the glory God will get.

Those who have apostolic passion are planning to go, but willing to stay. You know you have it when you are deeply disappointed that God has not called you to leave your home and get out among those who have never heard His name. If you will not suffer and sacrifice for something, you are not passionate about it. If you say you will do anything for Jesus, but you don. t suffer for Him then you aren’t really passionate abut Him and His purposes on earth.

If you don. t have it, how do you go about getting this thing called apostolic passion? Is it like ordering pizza at the door in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed? Is there an 800 number to call? Or better yet, just send us you special gift of $15 or more, and we. ll rush you some passion, express delivery, overnight mail.

If you are like me, you need help figuring out how to grow this thing called passion. I am motivated by reading how the apostle Paul got it. He chose it. Paul says in Romans 15 that it is his ambition, his passion, if you will, to make Christ known. It began for him with a revelation of Jesus, that he nurtured all his adult life. Paul not only encountered Christ on the road to Damascus; he kept on meeting Jesus every day. This revelation of Jesus, and his study of God. s purposes, gave birth to Paul. s apostolic passion. Knowing Jesus and making Him known consumed the rest of Paul. s life. He “glorified in Christ Jesus in his service to God” (Rom. 15:17). By comparison, everything else was dung, garbage, and stinking refuse. Paul. s ambition was born from his understanding that God longed for His Son to be glorified in the nations. It was focused so that the “Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:16)

Human enthusiasm cannot sustain apostolic passion. When God invests His own passion in you He desires to see His name glorified among all people, so you must build and develop what God has given you.

Four things will help:

1. Apostolic Abandonment:

Too many people want the fruit of Paul. s ministry without paying the price that Paul paid. He died. He died to everything. He died daily. He was crucified with Christ. This strong willed, opinionated man knew that he must die to self. He knew that in his flesh, he couldn’t generate the revelation of Jesus; he couldn. t sustain the heart of Christ. So he died. He abandoned himself. We live in a world of competing passions. If we do not die to self and fill our lives with the consuming passions of the worship of God in the nations, we will end up with other passions. It. s possible to deceive ourselves into thinking we have Biblical passions when, in reality, all we have done is to baptize the values of our culture and give them Christian names. We will have chosen apostolic passion only when our hearts are filled with God. s desire for His son to be worshiped in the nations. May I encourage you, dear friends, to give up your life? I challenge you to pray this prayer: “Lord, be ruthless with me in revealing my selfish ambition and lack of willingness to die to myself.” I guarantee that He will answer your prayer quickly.

2. Apostolic Focus

The greatest enemy of the ambition to see Jesus worshiped in the nations is the lack of focus. You can run around expending energy on all sorts of good ministries, and not get one step closer to the nations. I don. t have anything against all the projects and ministries out there. God. s people do them, and I don. t question their obedience to God. But the church has an apostolic calling, and an apostolic mission. God has called us to the nations. We must focus, or we won. t obey. Focus on what? I believe God wants a people for Himself. Activity, without a desire that God has a people for Himself, is just activity, not missions. You can have evangelism without missions. Short-term ministries are great, as long as they focus on raising up workers to plant churches. You might say, “I. m not called to plant churches.” Yes you are! It. s always the will of God to have a people who worship His son in the Nations. You. ll never have to worry about making God mad if you try to plant a church. It seems crazy to me that people are under the delusion that they need a special calling to save souls, disciple them, and get them together to love Jesus. Whatever ministry you are with, you must understand one thing: church planting is not for us, it. s for God. We do it so God will have the people to worship Him!

3. Apostolic Praying

A young man in Bible school offered to help David Wilkerson years ago when he was ministering on the streets of New York City. Wilkerson asked how much time he spent in prayer. The young man estimated about 20 minutes a day. Wilkerson told him, “Go back young man, Go back for a month and pray for two hours a day, every day for 30 days. When you have done that, come back. Come back, and I might consider turning you loose on the streets where there is murder, rape, violence, and danger. If I sent you out now on 20 minutes a day, I. d be sending a soldier into battle without any weapons, and you would get killed.”

You can get into heaven my friend, without a lot of prayer. You can have a one-minute quiet time every day, and God will still love you, but you won. t hear a “Well done, good and faithful servant” on one-minute conversations with God. And you certainly can. t make it on that kind of prayer life in the hard places where Jesus is not known or worshiped. Here. s a challenge for you: Read everything Paul says about prayer, then ask yourself, “Am I willing to pray like that?” Paul said that he prayed, “night and day with tears, without ceasing, with thankfulness in the spirit, constantly and boldly for godly sorrow against the evil one.”

4. Apostolic Decision . Making

If you live without a vision of the glory of God filling the whole earth, you are in danger of serving your own dreams of greatness, as you wait to do “the nest thing” God tells you. There are too any over-fed, under-motivated Christians hiding behind the excuse that God has not spoken to them. They are waiting to hear voices or see dreams, all the while living to make money, to provide for their futures, to dress well and have fun. The Apostle Paul was guided by his passions. Acts 20 and 21 tell of his determination to go to Jerusalem despite his own personal anticipation of suffering, the warnings of true prophets, and the intense disapproval of his friends. Whey would Paul go against his own intuition let alone the urgings of prophets and weeping entreaties of close friends? He had a revelation of greater priority, of greater motivation: the glory of God. Apostolic decision . making starts with a passion for God. s glory in the nation, then asks, “Where shall I serve you?” Most people do the opposite. They ask the where-and-when questions without a revelation of His glory in the nations. Is it any wonder they never hear God say, “Go!” They have not cultivated a passion for the passions of God. All kinds of lesser desires can be holding them captive. They might never realize it.

Present you gifts, vocations, and talents to the Lord. Press in to God. Stay there until you long to go out in His name. Remain there and nurture the longing to see the earth bathed with His praise. Only then will you be able to trust your heart if you hear God say. “Stay.” Only those who long to broadcast His glory to the nations have the right to stay.

If you have apostolic passion, you are one of the most dangerous people on the planet. The world no longer rules your heart. You are no longer seduced by getting and gaining but devoted to spreading and proclaiming the glory of God in the nations. You live as a pilgrim, unattached to the cares of this world. You are not afraid of loss. You even dare to believe you may be given the privilege of dying to spread His fame on the earth. The Father. s passions have become your passions. You find your satisfaction and significance in Him. You believe He is with you always, to the end of life itself. You are sold out to God, and you live for the Lamb. Satan fears you, and the angels applaud you. Your greatest dream is that His name will be praised in languages never before heard in heaven. Your reward it the look of pure delight you anticipate seeing in His eyes when you lay at His feet, and the just reward of His suffering: the worship of the redeemed. You have apostolic passion.

By Floyd McClung

Others can brag on themselves, and their work, on their success, on their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

The Lord will let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hid away in obscurity because He wants to produce some choice fragrant fruit for His glory, which can be produced only in the shade.

Others will be allowed to succeed in making money, but it is likely God will keep you poor because he wants you to have something far better than gold and that is a helpless dependence on Him; that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day - out of an unseen treasury.

God will let others be great, but He will keep you small. He will let others do a great work for Him and get credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work you have done, and this will make your reward ten times greater when He comes.

The Holy Spirit will put strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over.

So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do what He pleases with His own, and He will not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle you in His dealing with you. He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and let other people say and do many things that you cannot do or say.

Settle it forever, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that others are not dealt with.

Now, when you are so possessed with the Living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this particular personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven.

By G.D. Watson

I want a gaze that never waivers
Or loses sight of the goal
To keep it’s focus on obeying You
With mind and body and soul
Help me to walk in submission to Christ
In whole and not in part
Oh, Lord, please give to me
An undivided heart.

I want Your joy to be my greatest strength
Your salvation my impassioned praise
Your holiness to be my way of living
For all the rest of my days
Keep me steadfast in doing Your work
And following the course that You chart
Oh, Lord, please give to me
An undivided heart.

Teach me to daily die to self
And to spend much time in prayer
That I may be discerning of those around me
And treat them with genuine care
I want to be totally true to You
To wear your righteousness as my mark
Oh, Lord, please give to me
An undivided heart.

I want to live the time You’ve given me
Committed fully to Your purpose and call
Lord, consume me with Your awesome presence
Cause me on my knees to fall
And bow to Your desire for my life
Let no circumstance keep us apart
Oh, Lord, please give to me
An undivided heart.

©2001 Crystal C. Godfrey