Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer
your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your
spiritual act of worship.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and
approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:1–2
Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to
humiliation and a kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He
will take you back and which He could let you off of if He chose: it is simply
a description of what going back to Him is like. If you ask God to take
you back without it, you are really asking Him to let you go back without going
back. It cannot happen. Very well, then, we must go through with
it. But the same badness which makes us need it, makes us unable to do
it. Can we do it if God helps us? Yes, but what do we mean when we talk of
God helping us? We mean God putting into us a bit of Himself, so to
speak. He lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we
think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one
another. When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms
the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We
love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do
it.
Acts 3:19
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out,
that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,
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