It is Never Too Late

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Transcript

Welcome And A Child’s Cover-Up

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Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in the Word. I'm Ronnie Cooksie. As our friend turned the corner, ready to confront her four-year-old son with the deed he had done of disobedience, he saw his mother and broke into his best rendition of holy, holy, holy. Well, he wasn't ready to make a heart change, but he certainly wanted to do anything he could to stop what he felt was coming from Mom.

God’s Open Invitation To Repent

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In today's text, Joel chapter two, verses twelve and thirteen, we see God's invitation to come to him and to honestly repent. Turn from our sin, and we see the incredible, wonderfully great heart of our Lord God. The text says this, yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping, and mourning, and rend your heart and not your garments. Now return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness, and relenting of evil. Now this encouraging word comes on the heels of God sending judgment and consequences on his people, Judah. But even in the middle of God's judgment and the difficult consequences God was sending for their sin, God makes this invitation to them. Yet even now, there's always time to repent and turn back to the Lord. Until your dying breath, it's not too late for you to make things right with God.

What Repentance Really Means

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And he says, Return to me with all your heart. He wants us to repent. That means to admit you're going the wrong direction and asking God to help you make a U-turn to follow Him. Now this begins the moment you come to know Christ as your Savior. If you've never come to know Christ, you've never come to God and said, Dear God, I know that I've sinned against you. I know that I need a Savior who will pay for my sin. And I believe in Jesus Christ as my Savior, and I repent. I turn. I'm going my own way, but I want to follow or turn and follow to go your way. Well, you need to do that even right now. And that's the initial repentance. And if you do that, God will forgive you forever. You don't get it and then lose it. But even inside the Christian life, there are times when we as believers turn from the Lord temporarily. And God will often, usually, allow consequences to come into our life. Why? Because he loves us. And he knows the very best thing for us is that we turn back to him. And even in the middle of those consequences, he always extends this same invitation to us. Turn back.

Rending Hearts Not Religious Signs

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And so he says, rend your heart. That word meant rip, tear your heart. Don't worry about the gross sound of that, and not your garments. He's speaking spiritually. You see, in that day, to tear one's garment was an outward sign of what was happening in their heart. And so God says, I don't want to see just the outward signs of you turning back. I want to see your heart change. God says that he wants your heart to identify with him the things that are getting into your heart, into your life that are contrary to his word, that are sinful, that draw you away from him. And then he wants you to determine with him that you'll remove those things from your life with his help. Even if you've removed them before, turn back to God once

Fasting Tears And Real Mourning

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again. And then he says, Come with fasting and weeping and mourning. Now fasting is a temporary setting aside of something, oftentimes food, though it can sometimes be something else. And you're saying to God, God, you are more important than food or than whatever I'm setting aside and weeping, tears and heart tears, if you will, toward God, admitting that you hate what happened. You hate what it does to the Lord's heart. And he says with mourning, mourning to be sorrowful, to be grieved at what our sin has done to the Lord. In Matthew chapter five, verse four it says, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. And so fasting and tears and mourning, these aren't formulaic and that you have to do these exact things to turn from your sin to the Lord, but they are certainly things to consider if you need to turn back to the Lord. But the main thing again is your heart to the Lord. And then to return again means you already were his, so make sure you've come to know him as your

Why God’s Kindness Changes Us

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Savior. And then why should you turn back? Because he is gracious and compassionate, he says. You know, God is the perfect example of every great attribute. He is a holy, just God. He is wrathful, and he is a God who demands righteousness. He has paid for our unrighteousness, but he demands that we follow him, and that we desire to live for him, and we come short, and so we're thankful for the cross that pays for our sin. But at the same time, this holy, righteous, wrathful God is gracious and compassionate. The text says he's slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness. Oh, how doomed we would be if he wasn't slow to anger. He loves to show loving kindness. And it says he's relenting of evil. In other words, he doesn't want to send consequences for your sin, and even when he does, he's doing it out of love because the very best thing for you is that you return and follow God.

Prayerful Response And Closing

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Wherever you're at today, whatever the Lord may have brought up into your mind, into your heart, take it to God, rend your heart spiritually, soften your heart, not just some sort of religious outward expression, and cry out to God, declare to him that you want to walk with him. You hurt because you have heard him. Thank God for the cross where he paid for all your sin, past, present, and future. And God is abounding in loving kindness, that is, he is gracious and compassionate. Take some time now. Take these things to the Lord in prayer, and I'll see you again here next time.