“Yet even now,” says the Lord, “turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.”

Even now at the last minute, the offer of mercy still stands. The day of the Lord is almost upon the people, but there is still opportunity to repent. They must turn with all their heart and mean what they say and stick to it. There must be no wavering as they realise their sinfulness and turn away from it. They testify to their truthfulness and sincerity with weeping, fasting and great mourning. Are we also on the threshold of judgment? Still God calls to us to repent and come to Him and He will freely pardon us.

The pathway to peace is free and the forgiveness is full, but we must be sincere. There must be no turning back and looking back like the wife of Lot, in the Old testament, who turned in regret at leaving Sodom and was turned into a pillar of salt. We do not regret leaving our sin, but leave it feely and fully with glad hearts that we are redeemed people and can have the liberty of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit in us, to help us fight temptation and the fear of failure.

How will we know we are sincere? We do not turn back. We do not go back to our old ways and find ourselves imbibing the way of sinfulness again. Repentance is so difficult for us, for our hearts hold us fast in the hardness of the moral disease of sin and don’t want to let go of our pleasures.

We falsely think we will be miserable in following the Lord and our enemy tells us that God is a spoil sport and we know better than He does, what is good for us. We cannot see that God has greater and better things stored up for His people, even in this life! There are better things for the Christian and every “loss” is a gain in the kingdom of God. Our problem is we do not actually hate our sin, but want to cling onto it. Only Christ within can break this bond…