A Call To Return

By Richard Sison | 2014

It is the time of year during the High Holy Days that the Sabbath between the Yom Teruah and Yom Kippur is observed  and this is called by the Jewish people as Shabbat Shuvah or Shabbat of Return. 
Today, people should ask themselves what they have to return from, just as the people asked in the ancient times (Mal 3:7). Whether we believe it or not, the Bible speaks about these things both in the Tanakh and in the Brit Chadasha. The problem of many of us, we take these things for granted. We think we are free and we think we are saved and thus we can continue to do our merry ways without worry at all. We think that our simple prayer of acceptance gives us the ticket to heaven no matter what.
We´d been assured of our salvation that we simply smirk and smile with full expectation that our salvation is drawing nigh even though most of us live a life of sinfulness. This belief is not biblical and we need to think again.

As a quick glance, we may think that the G-D of Israel seem tough and hard to please and need several days of prayer before we can attain forgiveness. The problem is that Christian theology especially during reformation distorted the practice of repentance. We are being told that a simple sorry, some sort of confession of sin in prayer, we automatically receive forgiveness immediately and we are free of guilt.
The verse they often quote is 1 John 1:9. The word "confess" there is "homologeo" in Greek which means "to speak agreeable to the fact and truth". But what is the fact and what is the truth? The word of G-D is in fact the truth! "Homologeo" would literally mean that we are in agreement with the word of G-D that we did commit sin. John defined sin in the clearest manner in 1 John 3:4 "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law."

​Do you see any Scriptural reference that a simple single prayer is enough to seek G-D´s forgiveness? What I see in the Scripture are examples of true repentance and we really have to show to G-D that we agree with Him that we transgressed His commandments and we have to show remorse and change of our ways.
Repentance in Greek is "metanoia"which literally means compuction. It is an anxiety (distress of mind) from awareness of guilt. It involves reformation or reversal of act. Repentance is not about G-D being hard to please but a show of anxiousness that we have sinned and recompense for it.

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