Salvation is a gift of God given in His infinite grace. We receive it by His grace and through faith in Jesus Christ...which is also His gift to us. From start to finish, the salvation of God is never earned. That is an eternal impossibility for humanity. It is either received in humility as a gift preceded by repentance and faith or it is never known.

God opens our hearts and eyes to see that our own sin has separated us from Him. He reveals to us that He has thoroughly dealt with the sin of the whole world (ours included)in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We turn from self and our shattered and untenable life of "independence" and turn to God surrendering our whole life to Him. God, Himself graciously empowers our repentance. He opens our eyes to see sin as He sees it: deadly, deceitful, empty and insatiable.

Our life in Christ is begun by grace through faith and is lived out by grace through faith. You cannot follow Jesus any other way. Our faith depends upon Him from start to finish. The Holy Spirit takes the things of Jesus and makes them real to us and actively present in us. The upshot of this is that we are in a constant state of change.

His Life in us is always the same, but we need our minds renewed. We need our wills reoriented from feckless self to the faithfulness of God. We need our emotions transformed so that they do not rule us by whim, but are at the disposal of God to express His heart for us and for others. We need deep, life-long wounds healed. We have issues that are grounded in the brokenness of a sinful life that need transformation. There are long- standing, destructive habits in us that need uprooting, lies that need exposing so we can life in the liberty that belongs to us as children of God.

Repentance is not a "one-time" event at conversion but is an ongoing, daily part of our life-long following of Jesus as His disciples. As the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, He gives us the power to turn from folly and turn to Jesus. We are on a journey that has been called "a long obedience in the same direction."

I heard recently that when the first Apollo flight to the moon took place, the capsule was off course 95% of the time! Houston kept giving them instructions to fire the retro-rockets to make specific course corrections. They arrived precisely at the place they were meant to be. The firing of those jets can be seen as points of "repentance"...a change of course. They didn't argue with Houston, they simply obeyed the instructions. They believed that Ground Control knew more than they did.

Ah...there is the rub! It takes humility as well as real wisdom to finally "GET" the unchanging fact that God knows more about us and our lives than we do. He knows what will make for life and what will harm it. His ways are as high above our ways as the heavens are higher than the earth, He says through Isaiah. We do not innately know what makes for life. We just know we are desperately needy and try to "fill in the blanks" with all the crud the world, the flesh and the Devil offer us. How's that working out for you? A mess? Me, too!

Repentance is a daily discipline for each of us, not just for the season of Lent, but for the season of life in following Jesus. I have heard repentance called the "joy-filled" life. Listen, if what I was doing as a matter of course was going to destroy my life, I actually would want someone to come along-side and say "WHOA!" God is not trying to shame us, but to apply specifically to us the power of the Rescue we have received in Jesus Christ

It is not to condemn us that the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin in our lives, but so we can confess it for what it is (agreeing with God about it), turning from what can never meet the "need" and turning to God who knows exactly what the "need" is and how to fulfill it. The Holy Spirit then applies to us the forgiveness and cleansing by Jesus blood that is the heritage and inheritance of every true follower of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit applies the forgiveness of God specifically to our lives. We experience in time what God has given us as our inheritance in Christ Jesus. Because He has forgiven us in Jesus Christ, we can experience forgiveness in the hear-and-now.

Don't get upset when the Holy Spirit says. "WHOA!!!" Listen, agree with His assessment. repent (fire the retro-rockets), change course and keep your eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of your faith. Let Him cleanse what needs cleansing, heal what needs healing, change what needs changing, empower what is weak and show you His salvation.