A SPECIAL INSIGHT CALL TO REPENTANCE
Kolyah
April 28, 2020
NOTE: Do not share this material with those who are not of like mind; especially those who are hostile to our faith and values. There are individuals and organizations, who would like to keep this voice from speaking and from being heard. Please use Divine discernment. Thank you so much!
Shalom, Beloved,
This publication includes an invitation for you to join with believers throughout the globe in the first ever GLOBAL DAY OF REPENTANCE to be held this Friday. It also includes a teaching that I have put together to hopefully bring some clarity in regard to what repentance is really all about. First the invitation:
The National Day of Repentance has joined with the leaders in Malawi to call forth a Global Day of Repentance for people, throughout the world. Malawi has been holding a monthly day of repentance for years. As a result, that nation has been almost totally untouched by Covid-19. It’s people have prospered under the blessings of the Lord because of their national heart, expressed in unison, before the King of Heaven. To fully understand the scope of this initiative for the world, please go to the website: global repent.com There you will be able to register your nation and your heart to join with others throughout the globe. What this chosen day is calling for is: On Friday, May 1st, 24 hours of repentance to begin at 12:00 noon, Jerusalem time … 5:00 AM USA Eastern time (calculate the time in your own zone). At the website, you will see 24, personal and national sins listed, separately or in a group, to help guide you on this journey. You are invited to engage as the Lord leads during this 24-hour period. Some may be in a total fast, or a partial one …others will not be able to do that. Some will follow the list of sins, and others may be led to repent of other infractions against the Lord. Some may participate for the full 24 hours, while others may compress the list to be covered in only a few hours. Whatever the Lord leads, PLEASE intentionally, and with deep commitment, set aside this Friday to seek the face of the Lord. Whether on your face or on your knees … whether sitting in a chair or walking the floor … SEEK HIM with a repentant heart, so that a great turning/awakening might arise in our nations. We desperately need a great healing and a great cleansing of our nations. That begins with us.
Now … for the teaching found below.
“WHAT IS REPENTANCE?”
Kolyah
April 28, 2020
There is often a bit of confusion among Christians regarding repentance. Very often the terms, repentance and confession, are used interchangeably to mean the same thing. I hope to bring forth the clarity that they are not the same, but rather that one supports the other.
Most certainly repentance begins with the recognition of sin in one’s own life. But it doesn’t stop there. Actually, in the original language of the Bible … in Hebrew … the English word “repentance”, is actually the word TESHUVAH. Why is that significant? Well, to understand what repentance truly IS, you need to understand what that word actually means. Teshuvah consists of two parts. The root is the Hebrew word “tashan,” which mean “return”. The second part of the word is “hey” … which is the final letter found in the name of God … “YHVH” (Yehovah). Therefore, central to the act of, and to the true definition of the word, repentance, is an intentional turning/returning of an individual toward YHVH. Therefore, repentance must include the personal choice to turn away from sin, so that a human being can be restored in his/her relationship to YHVH. We must remember that each person stands before the Lord individually. Every human being has been redeemed by Yeshua’s sacrifice, but to be saved, each person must individually claim and embrace that salvation. We can’t save others by our profession of faith on their behalf. We can only embrace our own salvation through our own claim upon the Messiah’s blood, shed for us as an individual. Repentance for sin works the same way. It is an individual encounter of one on One.
Personal repentance is accomplished when an individual is grieved over his/her own sin, and makes the committed choice to turn away from it, and to turn back to the Lord and to His mandates. Charles Spurgeon once wrote: “Repentance is a discovery of the evil of sin, a mourning that we have committed it, a resolution to forsake it. It is, in fact, a change of mind of a very deep and practical character, which makes the man love what once he hated, and hate what once he loved.”
National repentance occurs when masses of individuals (particularly including those leadership) within a nation, come humbly before the Lord and acknowledge their own personal sin and rebellion against the way, will, and word of YHVH. National repentance is comprised of many individuals making personal repentance at the same time. National repentance must also involve the acknowledgment, by the individual citizens, of how any sin (committed by him/her) has enabled others in that nation to sin. For example, consider the situation where a man has been working in a specific branch office of a large business. Over time, a Godly employee became aware that his office manager was falsifying reports to hide (from the main office) consistent failures and bad decisions. That act of misreporting the truth is actually a sin of cheating, on the part of the office manager, with the intention to deceive. But let’s say that the employee turned a blind eye to his manager’s sin; saying nothing about it. When a leadership representative from the main office came calling, and asked the employee if there were any operational problems that might need to be addressed, he said nothing about what his boss had been doing. Because this believer didn’t get involved, and didn’t reveal the truth, he gave cover to sin. He allowed the office manager to cheat the company; causing the entire branch office to operate under a spirit of Deceit. Even if that employee was not writing those falsified reports, he was sinning by enabling the sin to continue. He was aware of it and did nothing. Having said that, it would be ridiculous for that employee to go to the CEO of the company and repent of writing the false reports. He didn’t write them, so writing false documents was not his sin. The sin of the employee was not going to his office manager and asking him about the misinformation in the reports … and by not recommending that they needed to be amended. The employee’s sin was allowing the falsification to go on to avoid conflict. His sin increased by neglecting to say that the reports weren’t completely accurate, when the visiting officer of the company asked him about any concerns, regarding office operations during the site visit. Giving cover to the manager’s sin was, in fact, sin also. If the employee was to follow the path of repentance, he would need to be grieved over his own silence, and then speak to expose it, or to correct the inaccuracies. Sometimes our silence and our inaction against evil enables it to prosper. If we have been silent, compromising, tolerant, or cowardly … if we have foolishly elected immoral candidates to political office … if we have failed to stand up in an effort to right a wrong … we have personal sin to repent in regard to our nation … we need to be about the business of repenting our own sin in the matter. We need to change course and come back to behave, speak, stand, and choose in ways that are pleasing to YHVH ... and in agreement with His way, will and word.
While confession is part of repentance (given that confession is acknowledgment of sin … agreeing with YHVH that something IS sin), confession itself is not repentance. Remember, repentance involves someone actually being grieved from seeing his/her sin, and being committed to personally changing course away from rebellion, to return to the way of the Lord. Daniel, Moses, and many other great prophets of the Bible CONFESSED the sins of their nation/ people, and pleaded before the Lord for His mercy. They interceded in tears and offered sacrifices and incense; confessing the sins of the nation, while crying out for YHVH’s mercy. Some even offered to have the sin of the nation accounted to them personally, and to have their own names removed from the Book of Life, in order to save the people. The Lord would not agree to that, because there was One already appointed to be in that sacrificial role of substitution, and no one else. These Godly men could not turn the course of the people away from rebellion by repenting of things that they personally had not committed. Their own repentance did not have the ability convince the sinful, stubborn, hearts of the people to return to the way of the Lord. Turning the hearts of the unrepentant is something that YHVH alone can do. The prophets cried out passionately for the Lord to turn the hearts of the nation, as they acknowledged the sin of the population. They asked the Lord to reveal the sin to the people in mercy … to show them the consequences of their sinful choices, so that that the nation might see, confess, repent, and be healed. Daniel had never committed murder, so he couldn’t repent of committing murder; but he could confess the murder that was being done by the people of His nation. He couldn’t turn away from what he never did, nor come away from idolatry, if he had never left the way and worship of the Lord. The prophets could however, confess before the Lord that they were part of a sinful nation (or of a sinful world) … one whose citizens rebelliously sacrificed their children to the principality of Molech. These leaders could offer that confession, crying for mercy and forgiveness of the nation, even if they had never personally sacrificed their own children. Often the Lord would honor the prophets’ requests for mercy; delaying His judgment, so that the people might have time to become aware and to repent … to turn back to YHVH and to His ways. Times of difficulty were often brought forth, or allowed by the Lord, to awake the people to the reality of their sin, through bringing the awareness of sin’s consequences.
We need to be careful about taking the sin of others upon ourselves, and believing that our repentance will apply to their own sin. There is one Messiah, who took the sin of everyone upon Himself. We are not Him, even though He is within us by His Spirit. We need to avoid magical thinking that our repentance will cover the sin of others, and make all things right. Only the blood of Messiah covers the sin of others. He pours it out freely, but they must choses to apply it.
We must be careful about taking upon ourselves the authority of the Lord regarding evaluating/judging the hearts of other people. We are to judge the fruit of choices in words and behavior, as to whether these things line up with the character, model, and word of the Lord. Without the help of the Holy Spirit, seldom can we know our own heart, let alone the hearts of others. Yeshua on the cross said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” He was specifically, for that situation, declaring that those, who were crucifying Him thought that they were bringing about human justice, while, in fact, His death was pre-planned to satisfy Divine Justice. He was asking His Father, to not punish those people for killing Him, when the divine plan from the beginning after the fall, was for Him to be sacrificed at their hands. In Acts 7:60, as Stephen was being stoned, he asked the Lord to forgive his attackers, but didn’t add that they were unaware of what they were doing. By releasing, through forgiveness, those attackers into the hands of the Lord, he released the mercy of YHVH to go after them; giving them a chance to turn back to the Lord. I believe that part of Stephen’s 7-fold restitution came in the form of Saul’s conversion into becoming Paul. The Lord alone knows if people are making their choices with full knowledge and choice, or if they have been deceived, tricked, controlled or ignorant. We can’t presume to declare their state of heart or awareness through our authority. We can’t for instance say, “Lord, forgive the high level satanists for torturing children, and for sacrificing babies to satan, because they don’t know what they are doing.” They know very well what they are doing, even without knowing what the horrific consequences will be. They made a covenant with evil, sealed it with the blood of the innocent, and have reaped the benefits of wealth and power in exchange. In intercession, we cry out to the Lord for mercy, for revelation, and for an awakening of those, who He truly knows are sinning blindly. However, we leave it to His wisdom and authority to know what is within the hearts of individual people. We simply ask for His mercy to forgive and to turn around all those, who are still able to turn back to Him. Those, who have sealed their fate in eternity, we ask for His mercy to remove them from having power and influence in this world; lest they teach, enable and legislate sin in the lives of others. He alone knows who is who. We leave all that to Him.
It’s very important to understand that we, who are born again, have HUGE authority in the area of confession of sin on behalf of others. We can cry out to the Father and acknowledge that abortion is a terrible sin … that the shedding of innocent blood has put a curse on our nation. If we have a family member, who has aborted a child, we cannot repent for that person’s sin, but we can confess it, and ask the Lord to forgive. We can ask Him to cover that sin (which is now operating within our own family line) with His blood, and to bring conviction of the sin of abortion, so that it might be repented by those who are involved in it.
The power of YHVH’s remnant of born-again believers, who have attended to their own sin through repentance, and who have been washed clean before the Lord, is a great power. (James 5:16 … The prayer of a righteous person has great power to prevail.) That remnant is empowered to cry out for mercy before the Lord; confessing the sin of those, who do not yet acknowledge Him. They can cry out in powerful intercession for the Lord to intervene, to forgive, and to rescue the deceived, the bound, and the rebellious … even to turn a nation around. The righteous remnant can stand in the gap, so that the power and the strategies of the Lord can be released upon the lost and the rebellious, so that they might turn. We can cry out for revival as we confess the great need in our world for that divine mercy of awakening.
The Hebrew word for sin is CHET. It means “to go astray”. Repentance is not just being sorry for going astray. It’s the deep, grievous, realization that our own sin has separated us from the fullness of the Lord … accompanied with a heart cry that we choose desperately to return to Him, to the authority of His word, and to His ways. For that to happen, conviction must be realized. Sometimes our confession of national sin is necessary for the Spirit of Conviction to be released across the land.
In this set time of the Global Day of Repentance, let’s not do our rote, familiar, prayers of confession and repentance. Let’s give ourselves completely and fully to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Let’s get on our faces and cry out to the Lord with an open heart … with no excuses … with no fear of being condemned. Let’s allow Him to show us our sin, so that we might understand where we have gone astray … whether in sin against Him or against other people. Let’s be open to see these things in our own lives with wide open eyes … without hiding. Let’s accept the Holy Spirit’s conviction, repent fully, and receive forgiveness completely. Let’s forgive all those, who have sinned against us. Then, we will be in the authoritative spiritual posture to bow before our King (as Queen Esther did) and plead for our nation; confessing the sin of that nation, and crying out for His forgiveness and mercy. Let’s cry out for revival and for revelation. Let’s cry out for a great turning of our nation, of our cities, of our families, and of our hearts so that we might glorify Him. This is our opportunity to raise our voices and hearts before the Lord, both individually, and as a concert across our land and world. Let the confession arise, and let the repentance flow, so that the mercy of YHVH will cover us and our nations. YHVH has been waiting for this day. The angels stand by to carry our broken and contrite hearts … even our intercession … as holy incense before the Lord; turning away the evil and releasing the holy. There is no more time to delay. It’s time.