Acts 2:36-38 (ESV)
36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. 37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
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In our immediate context, verse 36 is the summary of Acts 2:14-35. Peter is proclaiming to an audience of Jews (see 2:5) that Jesus is in fact the Messiah, that He is not dead but resurrected and living, and that they did not embrace him but rather crucified him. Peter quotes from the Old Testament proofs regarding the coming of the Holy Spirit and resurrection. The Jews were cut to the heart by the Word of God and Peter’s apostolic testimony, knowing they were guilty and had greatly sinned against God. In a state of desperation cried out and exclaimed, “Brothers, what shall we do?” The first word of Peter’s reply?
Repent.
There are times when, as in Acts 2:37, God’s truth “cuts to the heart.” Your conscience informs you that immediate and desperate action must occur to remove sin that the Holy Spirit has shone His pure and holy light on. This is what happened to me tonight. Thanks to James Miller at my church, One Hope, for speaking the truth boldly and with humility from 1 John 1:5-2:1.
By the time you see this posted to Facebook, I will have begun a Facebook fast that will last until May 1st. God has led me in this direction for several weeks, and only finally tonight God grant the necessary brokenness to proceed. Here are the three reasons why this fast is taking place in order of significance.
1) Purity. As a man called to shine as light into a dark world, I must be vigilant keeping my eyes away from impure images. I have not more than once looked longer than I should have at a picture – be it an ad or posted by a friend – which have led to impure thoughts. I would cover up these transgressions against God by saying that these sins were not as bad as the ones I used to commit while lost/a new believer; a little linger of the eyes here or there is OK. Jesus had a much different answer to dealing with sins committed with our eyes. He said:
Mark 9:47-48 “And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48 ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ “
The application for me as a believer is not that I am going to hell, but that sin is so great of an offense against God that it must be eradicated at any cost. All sin is an offense to God because He is pure and holy. When I think a sin is not so bad in God’s eyes, I have actually replaced the true God with a false god that will let me hold on to “lesser” sins. When this happens, and are aware of it, a huge shift in thinking (repentance) must take place. A lie has been believed for far too long if it starts to resemble truth!!
2) Self-glorification. There is no greater sin than that of pride. True believers must fight against this sin. Here is another area where I have let down my guard and sinned against God. I can’t give you an actual comparison of time, but I am sure that I have spent more time thinking about my status, exalting myself when people write what I like, and making sure my Facebook profile represented who I am to the world than crying out before God in prayer. Lecrae in his song “Go Hard” puts it this way:
Aw mayne we ain’t focused on the war / We just kickin’ it
Worried bout our image / And our space up on the Internet
One would be foolish to think that something that inhibits a major activity like prayer, something Jesus did constantly and urged his disciples to do often, is worth holding onto.
3) Wasting time/idling. Christians are to redeem the time given to them to honor the Lord as the days we live in are evil (Ephesians 5:16, Colossians 4:5). This sin is closely related to #2 due to the amount of time it takes to make my representation of my life as correct as possible. There is a tract about the cross that God has put on my heart to write way back in April 2009. It’s now January 2010. What happened? Satan is so deceptive.
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Therefore, I will be zealous and repent, like Jesus told the church in Laodicea to do in Revelation 3:19. I do not know what will happen on May 1st. Jesus may have come back by then! I hope to be purer of eye, more humbled before the Lord, and a better steward of my time. I may be a little more excited by this than I should be.
Well, that’s all for now, early morning ahead! Comments, as always, are welcome. If there are grammatical errors, please let me know – they tend to frequent these late night blog posts.
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