2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
This last couple of weeks the Lord has had the topic of repentance coming up constantly around me so I want to share some thoughts on this.
About a year ago I remember the Lord giving us a word saying “my children need to be living in the house of repentance at this time”
I remember this seemed a bit “old testament” type feeling at the time but it is a word that has been in my spirit since then and comes to the surface more regularly.
This is an area of continued learning for me and He gives me ongoing revelation around repentance.
Another word the Lord gave me at a similar time was “remember as the level of anointing increases on you the level of rights of access by the enemy continues to increase”.
This was a sobering messages at the time. We push in for more and more anointing so that we can walk as Jesus did in the power glorifying the Father and completing His works. I have however come to realise that these two words tie together.
The level of anointing increases and we shine more in the spirit realm so we become a target for the enemy particularly as we start completing the things the Lord has for us to do in the kingdom. That gets in the face of the enemy as we are no longer sitting in our levels of comfort. The enemy is then looking for any right of legal access he has to us to stop the light and anointing growing and being achieving through us. How does he do this? He does it by identifying sin in our life and pointing this out to the Father as a reason why the Father can’t release a blessing or something else he wants to release in our lives (the Father knows our sin). The father then has to be a righteous judge on this sin issue pointed out as this is who He is (refer to the courtroom teaching).
We are all sinners both by omission and commission so the Father is telling us as He pours out anointing on us remember to be repentant for your sins. Be in the house of repentance. The price has been paid for us but we must repent so the blood can be applied.
Every morning when I start with my time with the Lord I spend time on repentance as I want to spend my time with Him cleansed by the blood of Jesus and free of sin.
I read a book a while ago and a quote from that book I felt really captured this idea.
Quote from Jonathan Welton
“Fortunately God interacts with you from your destiny, not your history.
When you repent, God changes your history and sets you back on the path of your destiny, not your history.”
So when I start my time in the morning with repentance I am then going to spend the balance of my time with the Lord on my destiny not the history. The condemnation is gone as I am washed.
I also believe when I pray in tongues I am going through a cleansing process as the enemy finds it very difficult to come close to this level of intimacy with the Spirit. I think this was a key reason why Paul prayed in tongues more than anyone else.
One of the prayers I always say in my morning time with the Lord is the model prayer from Matthew chapter 6:12. After all this is what Jesus told us to pray. In that prayer we have the line
And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.
Forgive us our trespasses. We are told to pray this as the Father doesn’t wish to have anything holding Him back from blessing us and unrepentance for sin will do this.
Scripture tells us again and again that repentance is required
2 Chronicles 6:36
“When they sin against You (for there is no one who does not sin), and You become angry with them and deliver them to the enemy, and they take them captive to a land far or near;
We all sin and this opens us up to the enemy. Legal rights occur.
Let us repent so we are delivered from the enemy
37 “yet when they come to themselves in the land where they were carried captive, and repent, and make supplication to You in the land of their captivity, saying, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong, and have committed wickedness’;
38 “and when they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, where they have been carried captive, and pray toward their land which You gave to their fathers, the city which You have chosen, and toward the temple which I have built for Your name:
39 “then hear from heaven Your dwelling place their prayer and their supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You.
Wow our Father wants to have us in this place of being repentant of being cleaned of our sins. We don’t have to sacrifice lambs as we have had the price paid for us through Jesus’s blood. In the old testament they had Passover once a year when they would sacrifice the lamb for their sins. We have an eternal Passover lamb in Jesus and we can repent at any time due to this price that has been paid. So we need to use this gift and be repenting whenever it comes to us to do so.
We are shown this in the new testament
Colossians 2:13
And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
He has nailed our sin to the cross. But we must repent for this to occur.
You are saved and cleansed and at that point as you repent in prayer and salvation occurs. But then sin still occurs in your life after this so you need to repent again for that sin so it can be nailed to the cross.
If you are saved and didn’t repent once after that how much blessing have you cut out of your life? How much ongoing pain are you experiencing because you haven’t humbled yourself and repented?
Exodus 27:20
And you shall command the children of Israel that they bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to cause the lamp to burn continually.
To be pure we must repent (be pure washed by the blood) and cleanse continuously so that the fire burns continually.
As the level of anointing increases and the light increases then be prepared to drop to your knees and repent so that the light brightens. How many great men fell because of sin and lack of repentance?
True repentance is more than just words it is a change of heart and position of difference from what has been occurring before. Don’t kid yourself that you can says some words of repentance and then carry on with the habit/sin and think that repentance has occurred. It needs to be a heartfelt position of wanting to change and kick the sin out. It needs to be a heartfelt repentance.
Lord let me be in the house of repentance.
Brick on Brick Teaching 