News Flash:
In order to be a Follower of Jesus, you have to actually FOLLOW HIM.
Here is a new word for you: Metanoeo (phonetically it is “met-an-o-eh’-o” )
Great word, huh? (I am trying to be funny. It’s really hard to pronounce, unless you are a Greek)
It means REPENT. That’s not a word you hear very often – if ever.
If you are a Christian and go to church, you USED TO HEAR it, frequently. But, the post-modernists in the church, apparently, have decided it is too offensive, so they take the “road more traveled” and say things like “change your behavior”, or “act more like Christ”. They say the word REPENT is too much like saying “Turn or Burn”, which no one ever said, ever!
So, maybe we should lighten up and say stuff like “WWJD”. Remember that one? What would Jesus do?
(I know a 70+ year old guy who still wears the “WWJD” (What Would Jesus Do) rubberized bracelets. It’s easier to let the advertising talk for you rather than “SWJS” – Say What Jesus Said.)
But read this: “From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matthew 4:17 That’s what the Bible says.
Jesus said we must “Repent” if we are to follow Him. And REPENT is the right word when talking about becoming a Christian and following Jesus – or taking up your cross and following Him (He said that, too)
Repent means
• To change one’s mind
• to heartily amend with abhorrence of one’s past sins
• to perceive with the mind, to understand, to have understanding
• to think upon, heed, ponder, consider the mind, comprising alike the faculties of perceiving and understanding and those of feeling, judging, determining
• the intellectual faculty, the understanding
• reason in the narrower sense, as the capacity for spiritual truth, the higher powers of the soul, the faculty of perceiving divine things, of recognizing goodness and of hating evil
• the power of considering and judging soberly, calmly and impartially
Just doing what Jesus did, is mimicking. Changing your mind to conform to the Mind of Christ is what is required.
You cannot think one way and go another way, for long, no more than you can server two masters.
The Bible tells us to “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” Philippians 2:5
Now here is a news flash:
In order to be a Follower of Jesus, you have to actually FOLLOW HIM.
Your Brother and Friend,
PS – ditch the advertising and do it yourself. Make your life and speech be the billboard and bracelets.
Whitestone Fellowship 