[Faith-talk] Good Night Message for Saturday, February 2, 2013

[Paul]

Well folks, here in the Americas it's time to think about retiring for the evening and contemplating the next day when we will be attending our respective houses of worship.  I hope that you will get a good night's sleep.  As for the rest of you, as this is being written, it's already very early Sunday morning in Europe and the UK, whereas you in Australia are probably in church or on your way there, if you have a community one that you attend.  You in Kiwi Country are hopefully enjoying a pleasant Lord's Day afternoon.  At any rate, I hope that your day is going well or went well.

Ray J. Salemink has a short article for today entitled "The Gift of Repentance," rendered as follows:

The pastro was explaining repentance to his class:  "Luther defined repentance as consisting of contrition, that is, sorrow for sins, and faith in the Gospel." One bright eighth grader asked, "How much sorrow is enough?"

There are sins over which we are genuinely sorrowful.  But others, not so much.  Some sins we do delightfully, and our sorrow over them might not register on the contrition meter.

Truly, we are never completely sorrowful over all our transgressions.  If forgiveness were dependent on our feeling a certain intensity of contrition, we would never reach a level sufficient to satisfy God's expectations, and that would make forgiveness the result of a human work and cancel out Christ's death for us.

To repent is to be sorrowful for our sins, however slight or grave that sorrow is, and to confess that we have sinned against God and others.  Once confession is made, faith receives the gift of grace our heavenly Father offers us in Christ, whose suffering, death and resurrection has purchased the forgiveness for all our sins.  John promises, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)

And there you have it for today.  May the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, throughout this night or day and especially in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul