More About Joel 2, Returning and Repentance

As I've prepared to preach and meditated on the book of Joel, I've been impressed with the importance of repentance for sin and turning to the Lord as part of our sanctification.  As followers of the Lord Jesus we are called to living lives pleasing to God and abstain from sin-- "for this is the will of God, your sanctification" (1 Thess. 4:3).  While once we were slaves to sin, by God's grace we have been set free from pervasive slavery to sin.  So now we are to "present [our] members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification" (Romans 6:19).  Having been mercifully by the substitutionary, atoning death of our Savior, we are to "work out [our] own slavation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12-13).

Therefore, as the Lord continues his saving work in us, let us give ourselves to his "sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth" (2 Thess. 2:13)  As he thus reveals sin in us, let us ask the Lord to "bring [us] back that [we] might be restored, for you are the LORD my God" (Jer. 31:18).  Let us learn to pray, for ourselves and our church and all the body of Christ, "Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored.  Renew our days as of old..." (Lam. 5:21).

Let us learn how to pray and live repentantly.  Prayer is such a crucial element of life in pursuit of God's glory and pleasure and battling the flesh and sin! 

Here is a beautiful prayer from The Valley of Vision collection, that illustrates such praying, and how we may respond to his awesome saving work in us!

"O God of Grace,

You have imputed my sin to my Substitute, and have imputed His righteousness to my soul, clothing me with a bridegroom's robe, decking me with jewles of holiness.  But in my Christian walk I am still in rags; my best prayers are stained with sin; my penitential tears are so much impurity; my confessions of wrong are so may aggravations of sin; my receiving the Spirit is tinctured with selfishness.  I need to repent of my repentance; I need my tears to be washed; I have no robe to bring to cover my sins, no loom to weave my own righteousness; I am always standing clothed in filthy garments, and by grace am always receiving change of raiment, for you always justify the ungodly; I am always going into the far country, and always returning home as a prodigal, always saying, 'Father, forgive me,' and You are always bringing forth the best robe.  Every morning let me wear it, every evening return in it, go out to the day's work in it, be married in it, be wound in death in it, stand before the great white throne in it, enter heaven in it shining as the sun.  Grant me never to lose sight of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the exceeding righteousness of salvation, the exceeding glory of Christ, the exceeding beauty of holiness, the exceeding wonder of grace." 

O Lord, teach us!  Grant us the gift of continual repentance, that we would get real about remaining sin in our lives, and rend our hearts over sin, and return to you again and again.  Grant that we would see our sin for what it is and flee to Christ, thus magnifying the enormity of his gracious love, grace and purifying power.