“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Joel 2:12-13 – Joel is pleading with his audience to turn from their sin and return back to a holy worship of the Lord. Yet the type of repentance that the Lord was seeking was not simply an outward display of repentance, but a deep repentance that was true. We see this with that short phrase of “rend your hearts and not your garments.” Rending means to tear something, and in their day when one was truly in distress over something they would tear their clothes as an outward demonstration of their grief and sorrow. What the Lord didn’t want was His people to just give an outward demonstration of their grief over their sin. Outward displays could be faked while never actually planning to change their ways with sin. God wasn’t asking for outward displays of repentance, God was asking for real repentance. God wanted a rending, a tearing, of their hearts. In our story know God isn’t looking for superficial apologizes from us over our sin, yet at the same time having no plans to change our habits with sin. God wants real repentance from us, where we are returning to Him with all we have and crucifying our sin to the cross to never pick it up again. God isn’t looking for words of apology, God is looking for a heart that is broken over their sin and that is approaching Him for its mending. How have you then been handling sin lately, would it look more like a rending of your heart or just your garments? I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 3287
Question To Ponder: Why should it matter if our repentance is superficial or real?
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