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Evidence that demoands a verdict


Joel 2:13

Rend your heart,
    and not your garments;
return to the Lord your God,
    for He is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
    and He relents from punishing.

Thought for the day – Evidence that demand a verdict

Firstly, apologies for nicking the title of a well-known book by Josh McDowell for the title of today’s thought. But I think today’s verse is asking us a really important question about how to demonstrate that we are repenting from the sin God has highlighted in our lives. God asks the people through Joel, to tear their hearts not their clothes.  And it got me thinking about how many people say the sinners prayer, give Jesus their hearts and then carry on like nothing has ever happened. And I find myself asking the question what would I need to see that would show me someone was truly repentant and wanted to follow Jesus? What evidence can I see that demands me to make a verdict about the change of heart? Or does the evidence show that nothing has changed?

 

I think it’s easy to make big public shows of coming to faith, particularly at big events like rallies and such. That’s the equivalent of tearing our robes. It’s hard to keep walking the faith, dealing with our demons and our shortfalls knowing we want to be more like Jesus our saviour. Because God doesn’t want big flashy shows of conversion. He wants to change our heart and we have to be willing participants in the process. It’s not about the show, it’s the change in attitudes, behaviours and lifestyle that will be the evidence that will leave people no choice but to recognise God in our lives. But it begins with tearing our hearts, not our clothes.


 

This blog post is part of the Walking the Way Podcast series. All views expressed in this essay are those of the author. This essay is freely available under Creative Commons License with Attribution-ShareAlike, allowing users to share it in other mediums/formats and adapt/translate the content as long as an attribution link, indication of changes, and the same Creative Commons License applies to that material.

 

This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

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