Remember the Height

Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.

-Revelation 2:5a

This verse helps me think about repentance in a brand new light.

Many people associate the word repent with groveling and feeling really, really, really bad about what you’ve done.

No doubt, the heart of repentance is humility. We can’t truly repent if we aren’t grieved by our sin in the light of God’s grace.

But when John commands the church at Ephesus to repent, he doesn’t call them into a place of shame and guilt. Instead, he tells them to remember the height from which they have fallen. And to get back to that place through genuine, Biblical repentance.

To me, that’s the essence of repentance.

Re=back

Pent=top

To repent means to get back to the top. Back to God’s perspective. His ways. His truth.

There’s a time to kneel and bow down in repentance.

But there’s also a time to rise up, move forward, and get back to your rightful place in God.

This blog post was originally posted on February 4, 2010.