Repentance
Community is often lacking something in our world. Partnerships, marriages, organizations, and corporations are missing in great part the three prong, evenly distributed, backbone of mind, heart and spirit. While think tanks with an abundance of head knowledge exist, rarely are their people who put that knowledge to the real world. They meet and discuss but rarely is there action to their talk. The third prong in the equation, the spirit may be willing but is rarely empowered to walk the walk. While collaboration in duos can be effective, true communication and unity happens best in trios. This is demonstrated in the community of the Triune God.
The Triune God is the model of community and through the mind of the Father, the heart of the Son, and the action, the catalyst of the Spirit, Christian work can be done. The community of believers is led by the God Head.
God: The Mind of the Architect
Drawing the lines, creating something from nothing, the designer rolls out another day, before we roll out of bed. This is the design that can be found from Genesis to Revelation in the Bible and it transcends time, gives us instructions to what to watch for, and gives us a plan to follow, decisions to make, and a reason to believe. God not only gives us a reason to believe, but also a motive to which we operate. While the choice between, evil, good and the best are what may be facing us, His hope is that we choose His Plan A, yet we rarely do in our current mode of distorted thinking.
Jesus Christ: His Approach is our Living Example
Jesus Christ, the son is the part of our community that models what our approach should be. Jesus led by words yet moreover the account of the way He lived, as our concrete example. When we take His words, and follow His example, we are in the Father’s will. His approach started in a dirty stable, and ran the streets of the Middle East, where He journeyed, worked, taught, healed, and restored. Following His steps brings anguish, hope, defines love, and allows us to witness the most extravagant of love- dying for our sins. He became the sacrifice for a world condemned, and the complete work of the Father’s design. He is our teacher, our director, and the example in our community. If you are looking for the heart of the Triune God, follow the Son.
Leadership of the Spirit
The third leadership skill comes for the third element of the Trinity, The Holy Spirit. If we look for God for the brain trust, the example of the heart from Christ, our legs do not move without the prompting of The Holy Spirit. While our motive may be drawn by God, and our approach by following Jesus, our own decisions, our faith in action, and our decisions come from the breath of The Holy Spirit.
Chuck Swindoll, in his classic “Rising Above the Level of Mediocrity,” writes, “What we put in our mind affects the decisions of our heart.” If we put God’s plan into our head, the stories of Jesus in our hearts, then we will be called by the Holy Spirit. The Word is concrete, part of the Architects plan for our life, the approach is to follow the Savior, and the Spirit provides our communication, through prayer. When the three flow through our mind, heart and spirit, we then can make the connection of how our lives have purpose and we can then follow God’s plan and call for our lives. We then can act accordingly, be compelled to make right choices, and affect other people’s lives with that Spirit flowing within and out. That first inward and outward act is called repentance.
Decision Now
The decision to follow the directions drawn out by the Father, led by the example of the Son, is a place of prayer led by the Spirit. The prayer that the Spirit leads us to is admission of sin and repentance. Individually this is difficult but necessary, and then we are put “on the spot,” by repenting in community. When the community comes together confessing our sin, admitting we are sinners helps a community thrive. It is not an opportunity to beat ourselves or each other up! It is acknowledging that we are all sinful people who need a savior. My sin is not any worse or better than yours we are all equally guilty and enslaved by sin.
Confession
The Roman Catholic Mass is designed to understand the importance of public confession. In any healthy relationship confession is a step towards faith. (Page 409) If we have not followed God’s plan for our lives and have been off-track, we feel remorse admitting where we have failed, or going our own way. Confession, and repentance leads us to asking for help. For alone we are powerless, we recognize the power comes from the Father’s plan, Christ’s example and the Spirit leading us to repentance. With humility, with confession, and through faith we are guided to God’s perfect plan.
Revealed, Solution and Waiting
Repentance allows us to rely on the Father to tell us, to reveal to us, and the Son to show us the way. As we go through that scientific method in this theory of repentance, we are then ushered to a waiting room for the Spirit to move us forward, to lead us higher, to start to comprehend our transformation. Repentance, faith and conversion is our turning point! The artistry found in God’s plan and creation, the abstract of Christ’s Passion, flows down to the Spirit working within our creative process. His creative process becomes ours and it is then when we start imitating Christ’s methods when we start growing in Christ and function within the community.
A Prayer
I spoke of the Roman Catholic Mass and one of the early prayers of confession that occurs before the Liturgy. It was taught by rote to me when I was a child in second grade about to receive my First Holy Communion. I rewrote it as poetry and set it to music. It is part of my quiet time in the early morning. I quietly sing-
Confession
I confess to almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault,
In what I have done and what I have failed to do. And I ask you my brothers and sisters through our community, here in this place and out in the world- to pray for me to the Lord Jesus Christ- Amen.
