Repent and Believe in the Gospel

January 24, 2021

As we are invited to celebrate the gift of faith and the invitation of our Savior Jesus, we hear His profound words, “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”  These words should be familiar to us.  Each and every Lent ashes are distributed, smeared on our foreheads and these words are spoken, “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”  As Jesus traveled proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was at hand, He offered this as a doorway, an entrance to a lifelong journey with Him.  It is important that we take the first step by admitting our sins.  We do need to repent.  We must realize we require saving and we need a Savior.  This is done through admitting we have sinned, we are broken, and darkness is at times a companion on our journey.  This is only the starting point.  From the point of the acknowledgment of our sinful ways, Jesus tells us to believe in the Gospel.  This belief is to fill the void of the brokenness.  It is to fill the void of what sin has caused in our lives.  Jesus does not define us by our sin, but by us being sinners that are redeemed.  We are to come to this awareness by the power of belief in the Gospel.  When we believe in everything the heavenly Father is revealing to us through the Gospels, we are drawn into the powerful mystery of redemptive love.  Jesus fills the void of sin by the presence of belief.

It is like breathing.  We exhale then we inhale.  The Co2 that we exhale is replaced by the oxygen we inhale.  Like breathing, we are to exhale our sin, by repenting and admitting it and we are to inhale the power of belief that we are redeemed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We exhale brokenness, just to inhale the love God has revealed to us in the Gospel.  Our belief begins with our need to repent.  Our need to repent begins with an awareness of our sin.  As Jesus proclaims that the Kingdom is at hand, He tells us how to access it.  Repent and believe.

Father John Ouper