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THE
BIBLE
Can we trust a book written 2000 years ago?
EYEWITNESS
Did the writers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?
GOD
- MAN
Is Jesus really God?
RESURRECTION
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
RELIGIONS
With so many religions, why Christianity?
SUFFERING
If there is a God, why is there so much suffering?
TRINITY
Understanding the Trinity.
SCIENCE
The complementary nature of Science & Christianity.
FORGIVENESS
What it is and why it matters?
GUIDANCE
How does God guide?
REPENTANCE
What it is and why you can't get to heaven without it.
BORN
AGAIN
What does it mean to be converted and born again?
SAVING
FAITH
The kind of faith that will get you to heaven
ASSURANCE
Can I know for sure that I am going to heaven?
TRUTH
What is truth and does it matter?
MORALITY
Does it matter how we live? A Christian view of morality.
THE
CHURCH
God's vision for his family, the Church. A call to the churches of the
new millennium.
PURPOSE
How
can I find a great purpose for living?
IDENTITY
Who am I; Finding my true identity as a human being and as a child of
God.
SELF-ESTEEM
How
can I feel good about my self? The Christian basis for proper sel-esteem.
LIFE AFTER DEATHChristianity's Hope & Challenge.
THE CROSS
Why did Jesus Die? What the Bible says about the Cross.
Grace
The importance of grace in the New Testament.
Repentance may involve restitution
Repentance always involves some change in values, and a willingness to leave behind values and attitudes that may be inconsistent with living in a relationship with God. There are also times when restitution may be necessary. Perhaps this could be best illustrated by telling three stories.
The peace of repentance
The first story comes from Africa and was told by Festo Kivengere (former Anglican Archbishop of Kigezi, Uganda, and leader of the African Enterprise evangelistic team) in Decision magazine. He says, "My uncle, the chief, was sitting in court one day with his courtiers around him when a man came and bowed in the African way. He was rich in cattle and was well known as a man who sought God through the spirits of dead relatives. He had come with eight cows which he left some twenty yards away.
'I have come for a purpose, sir,' the man said.
'What are those cows for?' asked the chief.
'Sir, they are yours.'
'What do you mean they are mine?'
'They are yours. When I was looking after your cattle, I stole four and now they are eight, and I am bringing them.'
'Who arrested you?'
'Jesus arrested me, sir, and here are your cows.'
There was no laughter, only a shocked silence. My uncle could see this man was at peace with himself and rejoicing.
'You can put me in prison or beat me up,' the man said, 'but I am liberated. Jesus came my way and I am a free human being.'
'Well, if God has done that for you, who am I to put you in prison? You go home.'
A few days later, having heard the news, I went to see my uncle. I said to him, 'Uncle, I hear you got eight free cows!'
'Yes, it's true,' he said.
'You must be happy.'
'Forget it! Since that man came, I can't sleep. If I want the peace he has, I would have to return a hundred cows!'"
Kivengere says that later this chief did come to Jesus Christ!
John Goodfellow's story
The second story is from Britain and told in Decision magazine by John Goodfellow, a field director for the Christian organisation Youth With A Mission. As a youth he got involved in gangs and supplemented his income with thefts, muggings and insurance frauds. He searched in "bottles, brawls and beds for some meaning in life." Eventually he ended up in a place run by Christians in Amsterdam. He tells how one night, "I knelt down beside my bunk and prayed for forgiveness. I asked Jesus to come into my life and to give me a fresh start. I confessed every wrong that I could remember. It took a long time."
After several weeks of learning more about the Bible and what it means to live as a Christian, he knew he had to go back to England. "I had returned to England...where I was on the run from the police, and I admitted my part in a serious fraud...I was taking seriously the Bible's instruction to put right the past. I made a long list of all the folks whom I had cheated, robbed and hurt, and visited them one by one to admit my guilt, ask their forgiveness and see if I could pay them back...Unexpectedly receiving a suspended prison sentence, I went back to work on construction sites, pouring my money into paying off all my debts." God honoured his faithfulness and has since given him a very fruitful and busy ministry. He declares, "What a marvellous future we have with God, who can love sinners like me back to wholeness."
Responding to the finger of God
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"if
we are to enjoy a relationship with God, we must be open to things
he may put his finger on that need attention"
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The third story is recorded by William T. Ellis in his book Billy Sunday: The Man and His Message. Billy Sunday was America's evangelist of the nineteen twenties. He had been a leading athlete before his conversion. In baseball he was the fastest base runner in the United States, able to get around the diamond in 14 seconds from a standing start. He took his athletics onto the speaking platform, where he could hold a crowd of twenty thousand in the days before microphones. He would smash a chair to make a point! Many thousands found Christ through his ministry.
He tells the following story: "When I was about fourteen years old, I made application for the position of janitor in a school. I used to get up at two o'clock, and there were fourteen stoves to which coal had to be carried. I had to keep the fire up and keep up my studies and sweep the floors. I got twenty-five dollars a month salary. One day I got a check for my salary and I went right down to the bank to get it cashed. Right in front of me was another fellow with a check to be cashed, and he shoved his in, and I came along and shoved my check in, and I was handed forty dollars. My check called for twenty-five dollars. I called on a friend of mine who was a lawyer in Kansas City and told him: 'Frank, what do you think, Jay King handed me forty dollars and my check only called for twenty-five dollars.' He said, 'Bill, if I had your luck, I would buy a lottery ticket.' But I said, 'The fifteen dollars is not mine.' He said, 'Don't be a chump. If you were shy ten dollars and you went back you would not get it, and if they hand out fifteen dollars, don't be a fool, keep it.'"
"Well, he had some drag with me and influenced me. I was fool enough to keep it, and I took it and bought a suit of clothes. I can see that suit now; it was a kind of brown with a little green in it and I thought I was the goods. That was the first suit of store clothes I had ever had, and I bought that suit and I had twenty-five dollars left."
"Years afterward I said: 'I ought to be a Christian,' and I got on my knees to pray, and the Lord seemed to touch me on the back and say: 'Bill, you owe that Farmers' Bank fifteen dollars with interest.' I said: 'Lord, the Bank don't know that I got that fifteen dollars,' and the Lord said: 'I know it.' So I struggled along for years, probably like some of you, trying to be decent and honest and right some wrong that was in my life, and every time I got down to pray the Lord would say, 'Fifteen dollars with interest, Nevada County, Iowa; fifteen dollars, Bill.' So years afterwards I sent that money back, enclosed a check, wrote a letter and acknowledged it. I have the peace of God from that day to this, and I have never swindled anyone out of a dollar."
We are all imperfect and fallen human beings, even if forgiven, and none of us can completely undo all the wrongs and hurts we have done to others, intentionally or otherwise. However, if we are to enjoy a relationship with God, we must be open to things he may put his finger on that need attention. That is evidence that our repentance is real.
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What is Repentance and why you can't get to heaven without it
Repentance may involve restitution
Repentance is not something we can do unaided
