As our roots go deep in Christ, the fruit of our lives is the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22–23). This is an important point. By repentance, we are not making another resolution to “do better next time.” Rather, by repentance, we are asking God to “create in me a clean heart…and renew a right spirit within me” (Ps. 51:10). We are turning from our sin by asking God not only to forgive us from our sins, but to change our lives.

When Matthew abruptly introduces us to John the Baptist, he focuses his remarks on the central theme of John’s message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt. 3:2).
Certainly, John said more as he preached in the wilderness; however, this summarization is not an out-of-context soundbite from John’s preaching. Central to John’s ministry and message was the exhortation to repent, in view of the coming kingdom—that is, in view of the coming King. Consider:

John baptized people as they were “confessing their sins” (Matt. 3:5)
John turned away the Pharisees and the Sadducees who did not “bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matt. 3:8)
John defined his own baptism as a baptism “with water for repentance” (Matt. 3:11)

God sent John into the wilderness to prepare the way for the coming of King Jesus, and those preparations required repentance.
What, then, is repentance?
The word for repentance in Greek (μετάνοια; metanoia) carries a basic meaning of changing one’s mind. The common word for repentance in Hebrew (שׁוּב; shûb) has a basic meaning of turning—turning away from one thing, and turning toward another.
So, repentance is more than coming to a different opinion in one’s mind about something. Repentance is a whole turning away from our sin, and turning toward Christ.
It’s hard to beat the answer given in the Westminster Shorter Catechism:
Q. 87. What is repentance unto life?A. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.
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Written by T. M. Suffield |
Sunday, April 30, 2023
We’re meant to grow up into Christ (Ephesians 4). And yet doing so will make us delighted children. There’s something so wonderfully restful about the idea of being able to take pleasure in the same thing over and over again. It’s a sign of the way sin has twisted our tastes and desires that we are unable to do so.

There’s a quote from G.K. Chesterton I’d like to share with you:
Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
It’s one of the 16 quotes I have pasted up on my wall above my desk where I’m writing this post. I could think about it endlessly.
I wonder if to some of us it sounds oddly irreverent, suggesting that God is like a child, even though he asked us to be like them (Matthew 18). I think his impulse is right, that sin makes us old—in the sense of decayed—and that the regenerating power of the Spirit is new life in the sense of youth.
We should be careful here, we live in an age obsessed with youth in a way that Chesterton didn’t, and it’s also paradoxically true that we are supposed to mature (1 Corinthians 14) through our Christian lives. We’re meant to grow up into Christ (Ephesians 4).
And yet doing so will make us delighted children. There’s something so wonderfully restful about the idea of being able to take pleasure in the same thing over and over again. It’s a sign of the way sin has twisted our tastes and desires that we are unable to do so.
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God allows a wildness in his creation.  He doesn’t deny it exists, he doesn’t look at creation through rose tinted glasses.  But God doesn’t immediately stop every threat, every danger, God allows pockets of chaos within his created order. The presence of pain and chaos in the world God has made doesn’t declare God’s absence or call into question his sovereignty or his goodness.  But God cares in the chaos, he rules over it, we can trust in his goodness in it.

From 38v39 throughout chapter 39 God focuses Job’s attention on a wide array of animals.  Asking the same questions to draw Job into seeing God’s care, attention to detail and goodness.  From the lions who God satisfies, and the mountains goats who God sees. The wild donkey who God gave freedom to and provides for.  The wild Ox, the weird and wonderful ostrich, the warhorse with its might and power, to the hawk and eagle who fly because of God’s wisdom.
God created each of these animals, he cares for them, provides for them, watches over them.  Whether they are clean or unclean animals, God delights in them.  There’s a sense of divine wonder in what he’s made in God’s description of all these animals.  God is pleased with what he’s made even post fall.  But notice the focus in the animals God chooses to direct Job’s attention to.  It’s not the funny loving puppy, the tame pony, or the loveable hamster.  These animals are wild and powerful, untameable and dangerous.  This is nature red in tooth and claw.  God is showing Job that in his good world that he’s made there is death and danger.  There is chaos in creation but not out of his control or without purpose or design.
And God is good; providing for and caring for even those creatures than would make Job fearful.  Do you see the implication if God cares even for these things how much more for you, Job?
God allows a wildness in his creation.  He doesn’t deny it exists, he doesn’t look at creation through rose tinted glasses.
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