Repentance and Refreshment

by: Mark Fackler

This fourth R in God’s classroom is a two-for-one. That’s how Peter told it in his sermon on Solomon’s Portico. He urged listeners to surrender the weight of their pride, turn from their sins, and come to God for refreshment.

Cartoons have pictured the woebegone prophet carrying sandwich boards announcing “Repent, the end is near.” Those cartoons suggest that the call to repentance is something of a joke. Peter knew the hard truth of the human heart – that submission to God in real repentance means we turn over our hopes, dreams, and futures to God, who alone can turn them from sawdust to something beautiful. To repent, we admit the sorry sin that dulls our approach to God, and ask, humbly, to be forgiven.

God does forgive, the Bible promises, and the humility of repentance leads to a new status: child of God, servant of God, friend of God. Repentance is the only posture in which these gifts can be received.

The recently celebrated book 49 Laws of Power disagrees. It trains readers for advantage and advancement. Its get-ahead slogans, well illustrated by stories of both suckers and magnates, bear no resemblance to the Bible’s recipe for refreshment, nor to the Bible’s warning that sins left hanging on your tree will weigh the branches and rot the trunk. You can try the world’s “laws” for success, but so much better to simply pray, “Lord, forgive me, a sinner.”