Modern Day Repentance

It is generally agreed that Bible repentance means a turning from something to something (or should I say, to “Someone”). I have noticed a strange phenomenon taking place today, especially among the younger generation of contemporary Christians. It’s what I call “one-handed repentance.” Their repentance is incomplete. It only goes half way. It’s what the Old Testament prophet referred to as being “half baked.”

They turn to God on the one hand, while still holding on to things they love but God hates, in the other. They cannot wholly cling to the Lord because one hand is full of their toys. They dare not sing, “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy Cross I cling”; for all who know them know they’d be singing a lie. These types have never come to God empty handed.

Paul said of himself, “I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (Philip.3:8). He was willing to turn his back on a manure pile to gain the Pearl of Great Price?

It is not what we have given up that keeps us from God’s best; it’s the trifles we are still holding to. “What is that in thine Hand?”

by an Aged Saint

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