REPENTANCE IS FREEDOM

REPENTANCE IS FREEDOM

When I was 15 years old, my church youth group went to see the movie “Dr. Zhivago.” In it, a man professed to love his wife and mistress equally. After the film, a guest speaker agreed with that philosophy and told us that the man’s actions were perfectly okay with God. Despite what the Bible taught us, we listened to this man and believed him. Then came the free-love philosophy of the sixties. I was about 17 in the San Francisco Bay area, where it all started. One of our favorite songs was “Love the One you’re With,” and we feverishly carried out that doctrine, not even knowing the names of half the partners we had. That led to pregnancies, and that led to abortions.

 

In the generation before me, if a couple got pregnant, they usually just hurried to get married, but that wasn’t the case for most free-love children. What developed next was a barrage of very convincing doctrines as to why abortion would be the best answer. And so, it grew to be a norm in our culture.

 

Somehow we convinced ourselves as a society that abortion was really not a crime. But Biblically, it is murder and a sacrifice offered to the god of this world, Satan. (See my preach letter from May 15). So we chose not to believe it or figured something in the Bible was misconstrued. And many turned a blind eye, which, in actuality as concerning the Bible, is when a spirit of blindness or darkness comes on a person and sets their perception askew.

 

Ephesians 6:12 tells us that we wrestle against the “rulers of the darkness of this world.” This “turning of a blind eye” is when a person chooses to be mentally blinded to an idea. When a person turns a blind eye to spiritual truths, the person makes himself prey to “rulers of darkness.” The person chooses a tent of darkness instead of the clarity of spiritual light. And the devil spirits, who are the rulers of darkness are happy to oblige by sending spirits of blindness (also called spirits of darkness or deception) to sit on that person for as long as the person allows it.

 

That’s not okay.

 

Every person who supports abortion still needs to repent of wrong thinking, even if they thought it was right at the time. To repent is to say we were wrong. The Bible tells us that every person has been wrong a time or two. When our thoughts don’t agree with what God says, we’re the ones who are wrong—the simple truth. It’s not easy to admit we’re wrong, especially if we see that we’ve been wrong for a long time! Yikes!

 

But, in an instant, we can ask the Lord to forgive us, and He will. It’s very freeing to let go of wrong thinking. Wrong thinking will always be like a big rope pulling us down, down, down. Without ever admitting to God that we’ve been wrong, there will always be areas in our lives where we just can’t quite fly like that eagle over the storm or float peacefully as on wings of a dove. Something just keeps pulling us down. It’s sin. Job knew a lot about this and told us: “I have sinned. . . so that I am a burden to myself” (Job 7:20).

 

Jesus came to set the captives free. In John 4, Jesus meets the Samaritan womn at the well. He looked into her heart and got her to admit her sin. She was so set free and excited that she forgot totally about taking the water she came for but went running off to tell all the men in the city (who knew her well) that she met the Messiah who came to set them free. That was a great day.

 

Jesus understands us. In the next chapter, John 5, we are told that Jesus is called the Son of man. And in that capacity, he is the one who has the authority to judge us. God “hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man” (John 5:27). Jesus, as we see in the previous chapter, could see into the woman’s heart; he knew her sin and could set her free. Jesus knows humans because he was one of us. He knows what temptations we fall under, how we feel, and why we do the things we do. He knows every individual in and out. We see many examples in the gospels where Jesus already knew what people were thinking.

 

Jesus not only delivered the woman in John 4, but he also stayed two extra days to deliver the men in the city. Since Jesus lived as a human being, he knows what things are hard for us, but he also knows what kind of internal fortitude we have and the strength we can muster when we need to change something about ourselves. The woman and the men in Samaria needed to admit their sins to Jesus, the Son of man, who would forgive and set them free. We need to do the same. If you haven’t repented of wrong thoughts about abortion and now see that your thoughts were not God’s, repent now, untie the rope of bondage, and be free.

 

Love, Carolyn

 

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