In Your light we see light.
Psalm 36:9

Light received becomes repentance . . .
a divine intervention in our pursuit of delusion.

Repentance is the First Call from God.
Not salvation first . . . repentance first!

Repent!
The cry of John the Baptist,
the sermon of Jesus,
and
the simple solution to sin.

"Repent" is a call to
enter the family of God
by born-again adoption.
And repentance - the only requirement,
His only invitation
and the only door.

Salvation without repentance will prove - eventually -
to be not salvation but
the failed experience of one who has
heard the call of the Father,
the knock of the Son,
and refused to listen and open the door.

Repentance is
the knock of the Savior on the
door of the heart.
The opening of the door is only repentance
and that, on my side.
The gentle knock is on the outside.
I must open but the only key that turns
the lock is repentance.

To want Him who knocks is to take the
personal piercing of His
sword of repentance.
He will not put down his sword to meet with you
on your easy terms.
Until repentance makes the opening, the door
remains closed to the Bloody Hands . . .
no matter how else I try to pry the door open,
it opens only to welcome a
God-inflicted repentance.

Careful avoidance of contrition,
excusing the inexcusable
and I will have missed His coming.

Repentance is
the buried bedrock on which
the purity of Christ
is constructed.

The agony of hunger, the pain of inadequacy.
These welcome Light's invasion even
if the Brightness hurts.

The first Light we meet is
the illumination of our need for Light
by the shock of having lived so long in the
darkness of self-ignorance. 

To desire and welcome Light will always
usher in the divine work of repentance.

Repentance is Life,
repentance being God's Light shining on
and in the deep of the soul.
Your life is the measure of the Light you allow,
the precise measure.

How deep is your repentance?
That is exactly the depth of your vision of Christ,
your understanding of and intimacy with Him.

All spirituality rises only on the foundation of repentance
and without that foundation as a continuous presence,
all is empty and false religion.

Your spiritual eyes are opened only by repentance.
Repentance was John's call to Israel
before Christ appeared
and those who repented
could recognize the Son of God.

Those who did not repent were not only blind to Him,
even as He performed miracles before their eyes,
but they became His murdering enemies.
Solely on the absence of repentance.

The depth and trueness of your repentance
will be the exact size of your love for the Lord Jesus.

The woman who washed Jesus' feet adored Him
for the greatness of His forgiveness covering
the greatness of the sin for which she had repented.

Luke 7:47
"For this reason I say to you, her sins,
       which are many, have been forgiven,
      for she loved much;
        but he who is forgiven little, loves little."
             He said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."

Revelation is Light exposing Him who is Truth,
but revelation always stands on the foundation of repentance.
No other ground.

Revelation without repentance is
at best, delusion and at worst, heresy. 

The richness AND the reality of your life,
the distance you will run in your race,
the arrival at your destiny . . .
all depends entirely on the scope of how much
you have allowed the light of Christ to enter
and expose your secret affections and hidden thoughts.

Light is Life.
So repentance is Life.
Anything less than, other than Light
will be . . . Death.

Ezek. 18:32 NASB
"For I have no pleasure in the death
    of anyone who dies," declares the Lord God.
     "Therefore, repent and live."

If we could comprehend the value of Light
to give life and health,
we would cry out for its brightness.

Copyright © 2004 Martha Kilpatrick