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What Repentance Looks Like
Pat McFallJeremiah 50:4-6:
“In those days and in that time, declares the Lord, the people of Israel and the people of Judah shall come together, weeping as they come, and they shall seek the Lord their God. They shall ask the way to Zion, with faces turned toward it, saying, ‘Come, let us join ourselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.’” (ESV)
This is the moment that Jeremiah’s message reminds people that ALL are under the judgement of God, ALL are subject to His Holiness and His way. So much of Jeremiah was speaking to the people of God but here we see that Babylon will also be powerfully judged by God. It’s in the midst of this judgement that God’s people will have the change of heart that will draw them back to the Lord their God. Jeremiah says they will again seek God. Not only that their whole demeanor will be different, their passion of pursuit will look radically different than the apathetic hearts that once dwelled within them. They will come in tears, weeping, wailing and lamenting in repentance to God once more. They will ask which way (דֶּרֶךְ derek) which road? What Journey will take us to Zion? What manner of life will bring us back to God? They will turntheir faces, theirattention, their effort toward God again and finally they will come and they will bind themselves in an covenant with God. This will be an everlasting (עוֹלָם‘owlam) covenant, a ‘forever and always’ covenant that will never be forgotten. Not only will it not be forgotten, God will never cease to care"about this covenant between Himself and His people.
This is an incredible picture of repentance. This is what repentance looks like, this is what the face of repentance looks like. It’s what a life struck by God’s reality looks like. It looks like some tears sometimes, it looks like someone who places their priorities, attention and affections towards God (their faces). It’s not just a change of mind it’s a change of mind and heart that decides that the way I was living and thinking before wasabhorrent in the light of God’s love and truth and it makes me want, at the deepest parts of my soul, to live a better way. When that happens God’s love pours out in a promise or covenant that He will forever by my God, my Father, the Lover of my Soul. That’s the joy of it all, that God will forget my sin as far as the east is to the west but He will NEVER stop caring about me, about this relationship between us. So not only does this passage give me a picture of what repentance looks like, it gives me a picture of the fruit of repentance also.
God let me be a man who repents well. Who is more concerned about being right with you then being entitled to my own plans, wants or desires. Awaken a fire in me that burns to be near you, that consumes every way about me that is in opposition to you. Nothing is worth more than You. Help me to make that a lifestyle, one that my wife and children see and in turn are spurred on towards the same. Let this small fire in my burn in such a way that my son Jaden and my daughter Mia will remember at the time ofdecision in their own lives when they must make their faith their own.
