Y Safle

“Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:

“And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.”

–Joel 2:12,13

When Joel had described the great and terrible judgement of God, the picture of His wrath and the impending doom, then he also gave us these few lines which speak volumes about what is needed to turn back to God.

Firstly we must turn to God with all our heart. We must repent of our selfishness, which is idolatry. We have so often put our own enjoyment before God’s word. We have glorified ourselves when we should have been glorifying God. We have been wrapping ourselves up in hundreds of activities at the expense of quality time with God in prayer.

We must turn to God in fasting, weeping and mourning. There should be anguish at our sin, and at the lack of God’s power within the church. There should be mourning over those who do not have God within their lives and there should be weeping over the church which causes people to turn away from Christianity forever.

Paul says that when there is true prophecy in the church and an unbeliever enters then he is convicted by all, the secrets of his heart being laid bare. He falls to his knees and turns to God. Why is it then that so often unbelievers can walk into our churches, see the “secrets” of the hearts of the believers - their shallowness and lack of love and respect for our Lord - and thus turn away from God completely.

How can we be content with such a situation?

In my church we saw eight new converts in the last few weeks. People in the church say “praise the Lord”, but I have to say that their happiness at these conversions comes not because the people have been saved, but because it is the first church growth we have seen in six months.

I do not despise this small working of God. I am grateful that He is still drawing people to Himself by the power of His Spirit, but I have to say that this addition to church numbers is nothing when you look at the ever multiplying numbers of people who are dying without any knowledge of the love of Christ, our Saviour and Lord.

I want to see a much greater working of God. I want to see the church shaken by revival which will revive the spiritual lives of the church members, will bring more holiness and justice, and which will spill over into the world beyond our church walls so that people might be literally running from our towns and cities to escape God, and even then they would be arrested by the awesome power of His Holy Spirit, poured out upon us without measure.

So how will we see this great outpouring of God’s Spirit? Well, if we rend our hearts and not our garments, then God is gracious and merciful, and he may yet pour forth his Spirit.

A show of repentance is not enough. We must rend our hearts. Our repentance must not be skin deep. We cannot turn to God on the surface but face away from him in our hearts. We must turn our will, our preference and our goal to God.

What is our goal in life? To be happy? To merit eternal life and happiness? To be rich?

If our goals are any of these, or any other selfish goal then when if we have “turned to God”, our repentance is an outward thing. We have rent our garments, but not our hearts.

If our goal is to see God glorified then we have rent our hearts.

Let us seek the glory of God.