Re: Penitent

Peter Neilson May 17, 2021 0 0

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Isaiah 55: 1-7 (NIVUK)

1 ‘Come, all you who are thirsty,
    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread,
    and your labour on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
    and you will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me;
    listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
    my faithful love promised to David.
4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
    a ruler and commander of the peoples.
5 Surely you will summon nations you know not,
    and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel,
    for he has endowed you with splendour.’

6 Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call on him while he is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake their ways
    and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

St Augustine of Hippo in North Africa (354-430AD) is one of the great Christian teachers of the past whose writings have influenced many streams of thought in the Western world, not only in theology, but philosophy and theories about society and politics. He did not become a Christian until he was 32, but his teens and twenties were spent in sexual exploits with many women.

His Confessions are a classic account of the man’s raw honesty about his sins. “I cared for nothing but to love and be loved… Love and lust seethed within me.” He describes human sins as attempts to find fulfilment which can be found only in God. “So the soul defiles itself with unchaste love when it turns away from you and looks elsewhere for things which it cannot find pure and unsullied except by returning to you.”

He speaks of the agonising struggle to turn from his destructive lifestyle until in a garden he hears a child singing, “Take it and read, take it and read.” He picks up the Scriptures and reads verses that speak of renouncing drunkenness and lust and the call to “arm yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.” That was the turning point – an encouragement to us all, however far we may have fallen.

Isaiah puts it simply. Seek the Lord, while he may be found. Call on him while he is near.

PRAYER:

Sex everywhere, Lord.

We are saturated in it,

Obsessed by it.

Eyes and hearts easily seduced.

Fantasies fed on fast-food images.

Lord, we are discipled by lust

That misdirects our desires

And robs You of our pure love.

Lord, have mercy on us.

Create in us a clean heart

And renew in us a steadfast spirit.

We cry out for the victims of this culture.

We pray for the girls

Harassed and belittled,

Women abused, trafficked and raped.

Lord, restore their dignity and courage

To celebrate their womanhood without fear.

We pray for the boys

Too readily tutored into false expectations.

Lead them in the ways of self-discipline

Respect and true Christian manhood.

Lord, may this generation hear your call

To forsake all false loves,

And discover the Love above all loves,

In Jesus Christ, Lover of our souls - and our bodies. AMEN