Metanoia: Moving Beyond Behavior
(5 minutes)
"We thought 'repent' meant 'change your behavior,' but you can't change your behavior until you change what produces your behavior. It's how you think. How you think produces behavior." (Pastor Tim)
It's so important that we see that Jesus did not come saying, "Repent, change your behavior!" The word "repent" is the Greek word metanoia, which means to change the way you think. This isn't a small thing. When you read the word "repent" in the scriptures, what comes to mind? Because if the default meaning for you is still tied to you turning from sinful behavior, we need to soak in Jesus' perspective a while longer, because behavior was not top of mind as He preached the message of the Kingdom. Behavior is the byproduct of what you believe and how you see things. Jesus came saying, "Metanoia, change the way you think!"
"You know, when the enemy with his deception came along coupled with the spirit of religion, he tried to convince us the problem was our behavior. So for a long time in the Bride, we focused heavily on behavior." (Pastor Tim)
Isn't that the truth? Haven't we just been licking our wounds in the church for years? We designed entire weekends around having an encounter with Jesus, and then ended up diverting our eyes to our own behavior, listing on paper our most troublesome sins and even the "unknown sins of past generations." Now we're not just focusing on our own sins that we can't shake, but grandad's sins that could have been passed down to us. Instead of gazing into the eyes of Jesus, we were cheek-swabbing past generations trying to find where the sinful behavior started. The funny thing is Jesus never used this strategy when healing or delivering someone. He simply asked them, "Are you ready to believe that you're healed?"
"Scripture tells us that whatever you behold is what you become. What you stare at is what's produced in your life...So for the longest time, the church focused on behavior, and everybody got really frustrated because we couldn't stop behavior. We find ourselves slinking back in this area and that area, because nobody was willing to go into the scriptures and find Romans 2:4, which says it's the goodness of God that changes the way you think. It's His goodness - not your discipline, not your behavior, not you focusing on your behavior. It's staring at His goodness that naturally causes your behavior to change. Well, how does that happen? Because it changes the way you think!" (Pastor Tim)
Jesus never came saying, "Change your behavior." But that's the message we've heard the entire time in American Christianity. And on the backside of everyone breaking themselves, striving to change, we find ourselves dealing with the same behavior, but now we're neck-deep in hopelessness and broken lives because the whole time we were staring at the wrong thing, and we ended up becoming what we were beholding.
Jesus' message, the message of the Kingdom, is "Metanoia, change the way you think." Abba wants to take a walk with us today, and the conversation won't be centered around your wrong behavior. The conversation is going to be about your thinking. It's going to be about what you believe, and how you see. Abba's going to ask you what you're staring at, the long list of problems...or His face? Because only one of those leads to metanoia.
Beloved One, don't let shame and condemnation keep taking you back to what's wrong with you. Let Abba's goodness lead you into what's true about you! Don't worry about behavior right now. Just focus on having an encounter with Abba, because that will be the thing that changes your perspective.
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Worship: "Abba, We Let You" by The Wilderness Place
Honor: Give Online to The Wilderness Place
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