World Changing Words Devotional-Day 38

JOEL 2: 12-14 | ¹² Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; ¹³ rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. ¹⁴ Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God?

 Though he preaches judgement, Joel is by no means a prophet of unremitting doom and gloom. He is also a prophet who tells of a God of steadfast love who relents from punishment when his people genuinely repent. Repentance however is more than a theatrical show of remorse or a fear of consequences, it is a deep ownership of wrong and an open admission of personal and corporate responsibility for evil.

 Few societies have lived with a more minimal code of ethics than modern America. Yet ours has become a culture engaged in ritual public shaming for anyone who departs from conventional wisdom or offends against the current secular world view. We need a deeper sense of collective repentance, rather than a stronger practice of blaming and shaming.

 What makes repentance hollow?

 What makes it real?

Tags: evil, repentance