SCRIPTURE: Acts 2:37-47

OBSERVATION:
What can account for such a radical change? What would transform so many people (3000) into such a humble, eager, caring and sharing bunch? Two things come to mind: genuine repentance, which opened the way for Spirit-enabled transformation. When we surrender our hearts to the Lord, then everything within us begins to change: our priorities, our passions, our values, our commitments. Their hearts were “glad and sincere”, a everyone noticed the difference!

APPLICATION:
I wonder whether I (we) have ever fully appreciated what genuine repentance is all about. Its more than saying sorry, or feeling bad. Is it not brokenness, neediness, recognition of our desperate condition, our desperate need for mercy and help? Is it possible that the lack of observable, remarkable transformation (both individually and corporately) is because we have never genuinely or sufficiently repented? Are we grieving and quenching the Spirit by our lack of surrender?

PRAYER:
Lord, I do sense that this is true for me, that I have yet fully experience the kind of brokenness that will open me up to Your Spirit changing me from the inside out. Help me to repent genuinely and deeply, that I may experience this kind of dynamic, life-changing transformation. Amen.