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THE WAY BACK TO GOD
By Dr. James MacDonald

“Today, today if you hear His voice, don’t harden your heart.” Psalm 95:7

How we deal with our sin defines us. From our study on the broadcast you’ll remember that David had a pretty good thing going with God until he chose to sin. It was true then; it’s true today—when we choose to sin; we choose to suffer. No amount of spiritual desire can erase the effects of our sin until we deal with it God’s way.

The key word here is repentance . It is the absolute, #1 survival skill for the follower of Jesus Christ. The way we deal with our sin establishes the depth and the authenticity of our walk with Christ.
When we meet David in our study this week, his life is a wreck. For a whole year the mighty king has refused to repent and has covered his sin. Can you imagine how that must have grieved the angels in heaven? Sin had silenced the great worship leader of Israel. How heaven must have whooped and hollered when David finally spoke the truth. David admitted, “ I have sinned against the Lord ” (2 Samuel 12:13). He made no excuses and offered no explanations. He flat out took total responsibility.

What made him change? It began with a change of mind . In fact, the Greek word for repentance, metanoai, literally means ‘to change your mind.’ Repentance says in effect, “if I could go back, I would do it differently; I would not make that choice again.” This is the first step back to God.
Are you willing to consider that this word is for you today? Is this an appointment from God in your life?

Repentance is the way to deal with the next thing that God would change in you. It’s the way to be honest about where you are spiritually—about not being satisfied with status quo. Instead of caving in and saying, “Well, I’m better than most . . .”, the follower of Christ presses hard after God, seeking to experience the fullness of joy found in honest repentance.

How willing you are to repent of sin reveals your sincerity in following Christ. <Read that again.> Is the Spirit speaking to you about an issue? Join me in saying, I’ll deal with this God’s way, right now, because I want to be right with Him —whatever it takes; whatever it costs.

Repentance is the only way back to God. I challenge every follower of Christ to make the bold decision to turn from sin today. Don’t tolerate any secret little sinful anything, anymore in your life. Turn today . The longer it takes you to get back to God, the harder it will get. Some will read this and go on like it was nothing. For certain, God will go after those people, but it will get more increasingly painful for them to turn around. Every day of rebellion is another plank kicked out of the bridge back to God. That’s why Psalm 95:7 says “Today, today if you hear His voice, don’t harden your heart.” Makes you wonder if David wrote that Psalm from experience.

Just ordinary repentance—that’s the road David walked back to God. The route is the same for every true follower of Christ.