Repent. Renounce. Return.

Repentance is one of the greatest gifts that God has given to mankind. From the Greek word, “Metanoeo”, it simply means to change one’s mind. To repent is to shift from wrong thinking to right thinking; to come out of agreement with the enemy on any given subject and to come into agreement with the Lord on what He says about that very thing.

Spiritual warfare takes place first in our minds… in our thoughts and our habitual thought patterns. That is why our minds must be renewed (Romans 12:2). The mind is part of our souls, but our souls are not instantly perfected at the time we are born again. 

We must transform. It is given by command! 

That means that we are responsible for initiating and sustaining that transformation process. The Holy Spirit will help us, but we must do it.  The method is given in 2 Corinthians 10:5, “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,”.

Every single thought that comes across our minds must be captured like a potential enemy combatant and interrogated according to the Word of God. If we identify a thought that goes against God’s perspective, it is to be treated hostilely, taken hostage, and forced to submit to the mind of Christ in us.  

If we fail to diligently guard our thought lives, we will be the ones held hostage by the enemy. Failing to renew our minds will cause us to conform to the pattern of the world, to live in spiritual bondage due to deception, and ultimately to suffer great loss.

Repent. Renounce. Return. That's the key to victory in this life.

To illustrate this reality in the Bible, consider the thoughts, decisions and resulting consequences of the first king of the nation of Israel: King Saul. 

Saul was chosen. Saul was anointed. Saul was called by God for His plan and purposes. Just like King David.

Saul sinned greatly in the eyes of the Lord. Just like King David.

But Saul was never restored like King David. 

That’s because Saul never repented like David did. 

King Saul lost his legacy, his calling, and ultimately his life.  

Not only did he destroy his own life, but his actions and folly led to death and catastrophe for his direct descendants and the nation of Israel as well.

Sin has terrible consequences. 

It is a choice we make, and those choices begin with our thoughts.

Let’s look more closely at Saul’s failure to see how wrong thinking can lead us away from following God and His truth, into full-blown deception, separation from God, and ultimately to death. 

Failure #1: 1 Samuel 13:8-15. The armies of Israel were gathered to fight against the Philistines. King Saul anxiously waited for the Prophet Samuel to arrive to offer a sacrifice to the Lord.

But Samuel didn’t show up within the agreed time, and the army had started to scatter. 

Saul reasoned within himself that he had to stop the men from running off before the battle, so he took it upon himself to offer the sacrifice in Samuel’s place.  As soon as he did so, Samuel showed up. When directly confronted, Saul gave his reasoning and rationale for why he disobeyed. He knew right from wrong, but he reasoned within his own mind that his way was better than God’s.

He chose to justify his actions rather than repent. He never even acknowledged that he had sinned! 

What he did was explain his reasoning, blame Samuel for being late, and then tell a bald-faced lie that he forced himself to sin in order to serve the Lord!

The consequence was he lost his legacy. 

His eternal inheritance would have been to have his kingdom established forever. The Messiah would have been born through his bloodline, but now the future Christ would be the descendant of someone else - a man seeking after God’s heart rather than his own. 

Failure #2: 1 Samuel 15:1-31 God gave a direct command to King Saul to destroy the Amalekites and all their belongings. But rather than follow the full command of God, Saul decided to let the King live and save the best of the livestock. Not only did he fail to obey God, but he then set up a monument to glorify himself! 

Saul elevated himself, dethroned God in his own life, and made himself an idol. When confronted by Samuel this time, he told another bald-faced lie! He claimed to have followed God’s commands. But Samuel knew the truth, and could literally hear the evidence against him. 

Again Saul gave an excuse rather than choosing to repent. This time, he laid blame at the feet of the people. Again, he justified his own sin by reasoning that his way was a better way to serve the Lord! 

Samuel interrupted Saul’s deluded line of reasoning to chastise him.

But Saul continued to insist that what he did was right. He refused to be corrected. He refused to be teachable. He refused to acknowledge that he was in the wrong.

His tendency toward denying the truth led him straight into delusion. 

Samuel explained to him clearly that he had opened the door to witchcraft and idolatry, the evidence of which we’ll see clearly in his final failure. 

Only after that rebuke did Saul admit his sin. But it was not genuine repentance. He exposed his true motives for admitting he’d done wrong when he asked Samuel to honor him in front of the people!

Saul was more concerned with his own reputation and the opinions of others than he was the opinion of God.

The repercussion was he lost his calling and his anointing. 

His disobedience had far reaching consequences as well. Saul’s failure to fulfill all of God’s commands also set in motion a generational curse that would threaten to destroy the entire nation several hundred years later (See Esther).

The Lord ripped the Kingdom of Israel from Saul that very day. Later, the Spirit of God departed from him and an evil spirit began to torment him. In the ensuing days, Saul became ever more suspicious, fearful, jealous, slanderous, conniving, manipulative, hateful, and murderous. When we refuse to obey God, we open the door wide to demonic oppression.

Failure #3 1 Samuel 28: The nation of Israel once again faced a battle against the Philistines. Saul was beside himself with fear and thought to seek the Lord for guidance. 

But God did not reply.

In response to God’s silence, King Saul turned to the occult for answers. He sought out a medium to contact the spiritual realm so that he could get advice from Samuel, who had already died. 

His descent to self-destruction was completed. 

The judgment against him was his death, the death of his sons, and the defeat of the entire nation.

Saul lost his inheritance, his calling, and finally his life…all because he refused to change his mind and agree with God about his sin. 

He refused to repent.

According to Bible Project, “In essence, Saul’s root character flaw is self-exaltation and self-deception. He thinks he knows better than everyone else, including God. The biggest tragedy is that he’s not even aware of it. The story shows he is completely blind to his arrogance and always believes he’s in the right.” Read more at https://bibleproject.com/articles/saul-tale-self-deception/

Ouch!

It’s hard to admit, but I was Saul for a long while! 

In all honesty, it is STILL a struggle to battle against wanting my own way. I’m bent toward assuming I’m in the right! And if I don’t keep my head buried in the Word of God, and my eyes firmly fixed on King Jesus, I will always face the possibility of being deceived and turning away from the Lord.

That is a real risk for every follower of Christ.

But none of us need to end up like King Saul. 

Allow the Lord to correct, to discipline, to chastise. 

Have the good sense to ask God for humility, a teachable spirit, and a heart willing to repent!

Thankfully, our merciful God always answers prayers like that.

Repentance is one of the greatest gifts that God has given to mankind. 

The Bible is full of examples of God showing boundless mercy and compassion to anyone willing to repent and turn back to Him!

Repent. Renounce. Return.

It’s the only path that leads to life.