Turn!

Ezekiel 33:11 Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’

Prison parole boards happen every day in this country. The members of the board are there to determine if the convicted person deserves to be released before the full sentence has been fulfilled. They are there to hear if the person has truly reformed, truly repented of their ways.

It can be a very hard task to know if someone has truly repented, truly changed their ways. We look all around us and see people who ‘make mistakes’ and regret the mistakes. It is hard to know if they regret the mistakes or regret getting caught. Only more time will tell if the changes made are made permanently, or whether they fade over time.

Justice demands that individuals take responsibility for their mistakes. They must be able to spell out the affects of their crime on themselves, on their victims and on society at large. And it needs to be more than just words that are spoken. There must be a sense of felt responsibility and that can be difficult to determine for certain.

Some have claimed that because the LORD brings judgment on people and nations that He is unjust, that He must be some kind of sick person who enjoys inflicting punishment. But nothing could be further from the truth. His holiness demands holiness.

In our text we hear the heart of the LORD. Israel has been rebelling for centuries, following after idols and choosing to break the terms of the covenant the LORD made with them. The LORD wants fellowship with His people, but their stubborn rebellion stands in the way. If they would repent and change their ways, fellowship could be restored.

But repentance is not something that comes naturally. We all grab the fig leaves (Genesis 3:7) and try to cover our sin ourselves. But figs leaves just signal the presence of sin and shame.

But even those attempts to cover our sin that don’t involve fig leaves are often obvious to other people. We can see it in others much faster than we can see it in ourselves. We think we are fooling other people by our attempts to cover things up, but the only person we might be fooling is ourself.

The solution is to turn from the evil and do good. We must own our mistakes and then throw ourselves on the mercy of God. Then get up and change our actions and attitudes. Then over time our change will become evident to those around us. We won’t have to say anything. They will see the difference.

So today, work at being more transparent about one aspect of your weaknesses. Stop pretending in one area. Make one change.