C.S. Lewis on Repentance
Central to the message of Jesus is repentance. It is not only the subject of His first recorded sermon (“Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand’), but also the punch line of the Apostle Peter’s first sermon on the day of Pentecost (“Repent and be baptized…for the forgiveness of your sin”). So, what is repentance? Listen to this thought-provoking statement from the late author C.S. Lewis:
“Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track, and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor—that is the only way out of a hole. This process of surrender, this movement full astern, is what Christians call repentance.”
Indeed, Lewis has it right.
The message of Jesus doesn’t just call for us to do a little better with our lives, but it produces in us a completely new life. So let me ask you a question. When you think of living the Christian life do you envision a life of self-improvement or completely starting over? In the Gospel, God is both calling us and producing in us a new life.
Something to think about from “The Kingdom Perspective”.
If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?
~Jesus in Mark 8:34-36 NASB
