The Gift of Repentance

We all have a little discomfort in our brains. It's that feeling of "something isn't right" – that late-night friend, cognitive dissonance, whispering in our ear.

I see this a lot, even as a Christ follower, our willingness to justify what shouldn't be justified because the deep-down thought of either having to change our views or do something about our sin is just a little too much to bear.

It's an easy trap, one we tend to fall into together sometimes, and that's when entire church cultures get started. And before you know it, the train has left the station, and there's no way to slow the thing down.

But here's what is so beautiful: God constantly offers us the gift of repentance.

In Malachi, God says, "Return to me, and I will return to you," and He says it throughout Scripture.

If we fall into the trap of "once saved, always saved," using that as an excuse to live as we wish, then we're no better than the Romans Paul had to admonish.

As we grow deeper in faith, deeper in love, deeper in real Christian community (and less into the trappings of surface-level "church" culture), then we know we have a choice to make: stop living off excuses and change the course of our behavior to be obedient to our Lord.