This blog was originally published by Aliah Kimbro in November 2020 on biblicallyfeminine.com
I believe there comes a time for a reality check, or a recentering. It is too easy to be swept up in the cares and probing issues of this life, to fixate our eyes on the natural, or temporary, things, but it is more important now than ever to gaze upon and allow Jesus Christ to determine our reality. As for me, I have been entangled in my own mess, literally. Motivated by my fleshly desires, I have allowed myself to place my relationship with God second and my role in the Kingdom even lower than that. I am grateful to be loved and found by a God who believes in repentance, or pivoting.
In order for us to truly repent we must shift.
Aliah kimbro, reality check
The word repentance actually means to pivot. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, to pivot is “turning on or as if on a pivot”; the pivot itself is a shaft or pin on which something turns. When we pivot we are physically moving positions from where we currently are to where God wants to place us, toward His face and aligning with His will. Yes, we repent for forgiveness and the cleansing of our sins but there is an action involved.
45 But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk, 46 the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. 47 And that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
Luke 12:45-47 NKJV
It is easy to be complacent with the idea that God is coming back one day far away from today, but we don’t know that. If in our hearts, we are justifying our disobedience and sin while deluding ourselves into believing that we have time to “get it right” then we will be like the servant in today’s primary text.
“”Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. “Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.””
Revelation 3:2-3
The Lord is telling us in this text to wake up and be alert! To give strength and life to the seeds of Christ that have been planted in our hearts because we are not walking worthy. God never expects perfection from us because He knows we are dust (Psalm 103:14) but we are expected to love and serve Him with all our being; this amount of effort and reverential obedience is “perfect” before God.
This text is calling us to action! To remember in this text is a tense I’m not sure is used often; we are not simply recalling how we have received the Word of God, or the plans of God, but we are doing something. Oxford Languages defines remember in this context as “do something that one has undertaken to do or that is necessary or advisable”. But what are we to do? Hold fast and repent! We are keeping the Word of God close to us, fastening it to ourselves and repenting, or pivoting.
We don’t want to be like the servant caught lacking on the job as both scriptures we looked at today are very clear on this matter. Not being alert will cause us to find ourselves on the outskirts of the plans of God. And to us Christians, it is a double whammy; Those who know the will of God and do not prepare NOR do according to it will receive a worse punishment than those who are ignorant.
14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
2 Corinthians 5:14-15
This blog convicted me first and foremost, I have to be better because I truly do know better. The purity and sincerity of God’s admonishment and direction gives me a new strength. I pray that while the Lord is speaking to your spirit, you receive it in love for He is love. He will never hurt us, God wants us to be whole and reconciled to Him with no barriers.
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:18-21
The Lord is asking us to heed His voice and pivot. His faithfulness endures forever and His mercy renews each morning.