Repent and Believe

 

In Mark 1:14-15 Mark records the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. It says, “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’”

 

When Jesus began His ministry, His message was simple; the time is now; the kingdom of God is present, so people need to do two things: repent and believe.

 

There are two parts of accepting Jesus’ message and following Him.

 

The first is to repent.

 

We have made repentance hard, full of drama, and rare. Repentance should be natural, humble, and frequent. Repentance is to do an about face. It means I am headed in one direction and see that is the wrong way, so I do a 180 degree turn and head in the opposite direction.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is turning away from sin and not letting sin control your life.

 

The second part is to believe.

 

This is the part that many don’t do. They see the wrongness of the direction of their lives and turn away from sin but then have no idea who or what to turn to.

 

Believing is turning to Jesus. It is not enough to just turn from the wrong, the sin; we must turn to the right, to Jesus.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is turning our lives over to Jesus and letting Him be in control of our lives.

 

Accepting the message of Jesus and following Jesus with all our lives involves both repenting, turning away from sin, and believing, turning to Jesus.

 

In the third chapter in the book of Zechariah we are given a powerful picture of how this works.

 

Zechariah 3:3-4

Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So, they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord was standing by.

 

The filthy clothing that Joshua was wearing was his iniquity. Repentance is pictured as the filthy clothes are taken off him. Belief is shown as pure clean clothes are put on Joshua.

 

If we only turn from sin and don’t turn to Jesus, then we create a spiritual vacuum in our lives. Nature does not like a vacuum and will fill it up with something.

 

If we turn from sin but don’t turn to Jesus, we will have a vacuum and Satan will fill it with something that could be even worse than what was in our lives before.

 

Following Jesus is more than just not doing “bad things”, it is also doing the good works that God has prepared for us to do.

 

Following Jesus is letting our light shine so that others can see our good works and give God the glory for it.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is repenting and believing; about turning from sin and turning to follow Jesus.

 

Repenting and Believing So We Can

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls,

Joe