The text for the month of October is Joel 2:12-13, which states, "Now, therefore," says the Lord, "Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning." So tear your heart,and not our clothes; return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm."
Just a ONE quick point about this text...
The text makes it clear that God requires a torn heart. In Bible times people commonly tore their clothes as an outward sign of grief and sorrow, especially after they realized they were guilty of sinning against God. In reality, this practice was meaningless to the Lord. God desires for a person's heart to be torn! Simply put, this means that a person must really have a broken heart concerning his sin! After committing adultery and murder David stated, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart- these, O God, you will not despise" (Psalm 51:17).
It seems that many people reach a point in their life where they decide to turn away from sin and "do better." They may decide to stop drinking, smoking, cussing, looking at pornography, or abusing drugs. They may even resolve to be a forgiving/generous/loving individual. Of course, we would applaud such decisions. HOWEVER, simply changing for the better is not what the Lord requires!!! The evidence that a person is genuinely being changed by God is a broken heart concerning his past sins! Simply saying, "I'm not going to do that anymore" is not sufficient.
The harsh reality is that many people have simply "outgrown" their sinful behavior. They no longer do some of things they used to do because they have jobs, spouses, kids, and other responsibilities. The problem is they have never had a torn heart! They have never truly experienced "godly sorrow" which brings about "repentance" which leads to "salvation" (2 Corinthians 7:10).
Romans 2:4 states, "God's kindness leads us to repentance." A person must recognize his guilty condition before God (Romans 3:23), see the cross as his hope (Romans 5:8), and really have a broken heart because of the sins he committed or his "new life" is simply a change for the better and not what the bible calls repentance. Genuine repentance will almost certainly include "weeping and mourning" (Joel 2:12-13) because the person's heart is torn. I sincerely hope you know what I'm talking about!!!
