{"id":2791,"date":"2013-03-14T08:04:06","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T12:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oldsandals.net\/?p=2791"},"modified":"2013-03-16T08:33:53","modified_gmt":"2013-03-16T12:33:53","slug":"square-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/?p=2791","title":{"rendered":"Square-up"},"content":{"rendered":"

From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, \u201cRepent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.\u201d\u00a0 Matthew 4:17<\/em><\/p>\n

These may or may not have been the exact<\/em> words that Jesus said, but they undoubtedly convey the two overarching themes in his preaching, namely, that it is incumbent upon us to sincerely repent, and after sincere repentance\u00a0our eyes will be opened to see the kingdom of God.<\/p>\n

Why is it so important to repent?\u00a0 To repent is to turn around, to do an about face, to recognize that you’ve been on the wrong road.\u00a0 It is to square-up with reality, acknowledging that the God who made you will someday call you to account.\u00a0 It is to ask God’s forgiveness out of a heart-felt understanding that things are somehow not right, not right inside you, not right in the world around you.\u00a0 It is a Holy Spirit-aided desire to make Christ, the Son of God, the center of your life and aspirations.<\/p>\n

And what when are eyes are opened to see the kingdom of God?\u00a0 We\u00a0see everything in a new glorious light.\u00a0 We see that there is meaning in everything, even suffering.\u00a0 We see Death itself as a defeated foe.\u00a0 We see those we meet each day as men and women loved by God, and for whom Christ died.\u00a0 We have hope where we didn’t have it before.\u00a0 We begin to experience that “joy unspeakable and full of glory”\u00a0the Bible talks about.<\/p>\n

And finally, we recognize how we need to go on repenting.\u00a0 True repentance always leads to more true repentance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, \u201cRepent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.\u201d\u00a0 Matthew 4:17 These may or may not have been the exact words that Jesus said, but they undoubtedly convey the two overarching themes in his preaching, namely, that it is incumbent upon us to sincerely repent, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Square-up”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2791"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2792,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2791\/revisions\/2792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}