Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Acts 3:19.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלוהים) says:
The path of life is the way of repentance. It is for those who have had a change of mind and thus a change of ways.
Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the LORD and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. Isaiah 55:7.
The opening theme of the preaching of Jesus was repentance and the same for John the Baptist before Him.
Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news!” Mark 1:14-15.
The word you see translated as “repent” does not mean just to be sorry you did something, although it can include that idea, but it is so much more. It means sorrow followed by a change that sets you free from that behavior and gives you joy, true, glorious, unspeakable, incomprehensible joy! It puts you above and no longer beneath your emotions, fears, and wicked ways.
It is the Greek word “metanoeó (μετανοέω),” which means to change one’s mind and purpose. Metanoéō is from the word “metá,” which means “changed after being with” and “noiéō,” which means “think.” So, “think differently afterwards.” After what? After hearing and abiding in My Word, for My thoughts are higher than your thoughts and My ways than your ways, but I send down My Words to share My thoughts and ways with you and then by My Spirit you can forsake your thoughts and ways and return to operating in My image and according to My likeness. And My thoughts and ways are beyond all you in your natural mind can even ask or imagination. They are wonderful. I work wonders by My Word. And that is the first Name I tell you for Jesus. His Name shall be called WONDERFUL.
For a child is born to us, a Son is given to us; and upon His shoulders dominion rests, and His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, God Hero, Father Forever, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace. Isaiah 9:5-6.
Just look at those precious Names that describe My Word made flesh dwelling in you, your hope of glory, filling you with His fragrance and always causing you to triumph, if you will only repent.
It is time to repent of lower thoughts and go higher where I have seated you with Christ in your born-again, resurrected spirit at My right hand. Yes, it is true that your body is not resurrected yet for you still have an assignment to finish in this world before the leasehold of Adam is up and My Son returns to take back the fee simple. But even though your body is very much in the world, you are not of the world, for your spirit has been born again and you are transformed in your inner man after being with My Word. That is, if you receive My Word for what truly is, not only My Word but My very self. There are many who scoff at My Word but if you receive My Word and grow thereby you are in a whole new realm where the impossible becomes very possible and miracles follow My Word.
For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. 1 Thessalonians 2:13.
If you receive and do not reject it My Word goes to work in you and you become a new creation in Christ.
Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. James 1:21.
It all has to do with walking in the way of repentance rather than in your wicked ways.
Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the LORD God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’” Ezekiel 33:11.
“God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.” Acts 3:26.
Return to My house and get out of the pigpen of the worldly minded. When the prodigal son came to his right mind, he repented and returned to his father’s house where the good life was. Many of you need to renew your mind to get in your right mind, your righteous mind, where all is pure and all is peace and all is love.
To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. Titus 1:15.
Many believers are still walking just like they did before they received Jesus, in the realm of the emotions and the mindset of the ungodly, which questions, doubts, and disobeys My Word. And if you put up with this behavior in yourself, you will just keep on walking in negative emotions, subject to fear, depression, and torment, and hating one another, at least for a good part of the time. It is time for you to get serious about walking out your destiny on the path of life and leaving the old ways of sin and death behind. I have rescued you from the power of darkness and translated you to the Kingdom of My beloved Son in whom you have forgiveness and redemption from your sins in His blood. It is time to let go of the sin you hug so tight for it is only encumbering your path.
What am I talking about? Most of you will know. What is it that you are thinking on, speaking about, harboring in you, that does not line up with My Word? Is it hatred for one who you think is “using you” and doing you wrong? Is it gossip about others and speaking of them badly? Is it impurity of imagination and what you are looking at? Anger? Obscene language or swear words? Is it just thinking mean and ugly thoughts about others though you do not express them orally? Is it resentment? Is it doubt and unbelief? Is it sloth in your work? Is it telling those “little” lies that make you look better? Is it blaming others for your bad conduct? Is it dishonor for your parents or spouse so that you demean them before others whether openly or behind their backs? Is it cheating on your hours at work? Is it addiction for substances and overdoing on these things? Is it confusion in what you should do or be?
These are wicked ways no matter how else people call them today. Are you sick of being sick and tired and finding you cannot manage yourself or your thought life though it is tormenting you?
You may think you cannot help these things but that is not true. These are not the real you. They are a result of sin, starting with Adam, that birthed you into a system of lies and corruption that are weighing you down and impeding your upward path, your HIGH ways on the heights. But Jesus came to bring you GOOD NEWS, tidings of great joy for all peoples. You can know and live the truth and the truth will set you FREE. Free of what? The encumbering hindrance of sin. So repent and believe in the good news! The real you is filled with righteousness, peace, love, and joy in the Holy Spirit. And I am present as your helper to get you where you should be, where you want to be, but first you will have to repent and set your mind like flint to give up wicked ways.
It is time, if you are deficient in any of these areas I have mentioned, or if you are living under a heaviness of guilt and shame because you are behaving in these wicked ways to take the wonderful opportunity I offer you to renew your Mind in hearing, speaking, pondering, and reading My Word until your mind, directed by your spirit in which Mine dwells to guide you to all truth, becomes your greatest strength in times of trouble and your heart becomes the Garden of Eden filled with the sunshine and sweet fragrance of My saving love.
Do not condemn yourself due to thoughts that come to you. Answer them with the truth of My Word and cast them under your feet. For in the Spirit I have seated you above all these enemies and they are under your feet as His body on earth.
But above all take authority in the power of My Might and cast them down, do not give them freedom to roam in your mind and beat you down.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5.
I sent My prophet Jonah to preach repentance to the city of Nineveh for otherwise the sins of the people there were so great that My divine justice would destroy them. When they heard the preaching of Jonah they all repented from the least to the greatest, to the very king on the throne, and they changed their minds AND TURNED ASIDE FROM THEIR WICKED WAYS. Jonah They changed their minds and were able to behave differently. And they were saved from the wrath to come. I was able to not carry it out. And this pleased Me. I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather in that he repents and lives.
“Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!’ In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Luke 15:8-10.
Is it time you gave joy in the presence of the angels? You are surrounded by them though you do not see them with your physical eyes.
There are many Scriptures about repentance in the Old and New Testaments. In Hebrew (the language of the Old Testament) it is the word “shuv (שׁוּב)” which means to “repent,” “turn,” “return” and to “restore.” As a result of Jonah’s preaching in Nineveh, they turned (shuv) from their evil ways and I turned (shuv) from the justice that was going to fall.
Repentance is powerful.
But the true essence of repentance was spoken by My apostle Peter who understood the beauty of repentance after denying My Son three times. Not remorse, that shames and kills you like it did to Judas, but repentance that returns and cleanses you and gives you a whole new way of seeing things going forward.
But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Messiah would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Messiah appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time. Acts 3:18-21.
Jesus fulfilled all the promises and prophesies of the prophets and patriarchs foretelling the sufferings and death of the promised Anointed One that would take away all your sins by receiving the punishment due them in your place and open to you the way to My Kingdom again as signified by the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle of Moses. The path from the bronze altar and the sacrifice of the blood of the burnt offering to remove your sins and give you beauty for the ashes of your life, to the washing at the bronze laver of baptism and rebirth in My Word by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, into the inner court to partake of the bread of life and the light of the world, and then on past the golden altar of incense in a cloud of prayer as the High Priest takes the blood through the veil and sprinkles it on the mercy seat above the commandments in the Ark of the Covenant (Testimony) for the forgiveness of sins. This represents your salvation journey and is a depiction on earth of the heavenly realities.
Therefore, repent and believe in the good news of Jesus and return to Me, your Father, for I made Him who knew no sin to become sin on your behalf so you could be made righteous with My own righteousness. Confess your sins and repent, i.e., make a firm purpose of no longer living according to your former wicked ways, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the joy of My presence as one with you in Him so all the world will hear the good news and I can send Jesus, the Messiah appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which I spoke by the mouth of My holy prophets from ancient time. Acts 3:18-21. Hasten the day of His coming to make all things new. The time of tribulation is coming upon all who have not repented once this time of grace is completed, reach out to draw others to repentance and salvation in this time of refreshment before justice falls. I am sending you like I did Jonah to Nineveh.
Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. 2 Peter 3:11-13.
Repentance is the key to resurrection. Repentance is the key to being caught up in the clouds to be changed in the twinkling of an eye to be taken out before the wrath to come. Repentance is powerful and it will change your heart from one filled with fear, hate, and torment, to one filled with great love, peace, and joy.
I love you. Repent and believe in the good news and follow all that I tell you therein and you will have a WONDERFUL life.