Matthew 3 - True repentance from the heart

John the baptist was proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of heaven, he had a strong personality and was very strict in his diet and character, similar to Elijah he wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist and he ate locusts and wild honey as food. In this chapter, John called out the Pharisees and Sadducees as they had a delusion of being righteous before God with all their rituals and legalism mindset. The accusations was in verse 8-10. They thought because their ancestor is Abraham, they automatically gain the access to the kingdom of heaven, but John was addressing something deeper. John called out to them to repent from their hearts, truly and genuinely, which shall lead to a proper respond to Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ went thru a baptism of water to show that He was willing to identified Himself even when He is the Son of God with the people, He publicly agrees the true repentance from the heart that was preached by John, most importantly this led to public announcement that came from the voice of God Himself saying “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”. It also denotes the humility from Jesus Christ & exaltation from our Father in heaven.

There are times that our success, productiveness, busyness, ministries, titles, positions became a deceptive mask that paints a beautiful makeup on the outside. It may led to the possibility of one to think that oh, I’ve read the bible 50 times, been to Church 4 times a week, attended 3 prayer meetings in a week, completed bible school and serving as praise and worship leader in the church service. It’s very easy to fall into deception to think that I’m saved because I’m doing all these works of labour for God. All these are works are not bad, but God desires true repentance from the heart and not to be exchange by these accomplishments. It can even lead to a delusion such as continue to hurt someone deeply without apologizing but then go to church service, tithing & serving God voluntarily, thinking that it will offset that, this is why the foundation of “Salvation” is very important. None can be saved by works, if one starts to think that, it will only fuel that super-me, the self-righteousness & self-justification which is the trap that the Pharisees & Sadducees had fallen into… I write this with a heavy heart as I was once deceived by that too, and my heart aches for many because of this vile deceptive force that causes people to miss the mark…

This is just a drastic example but the point is to bring out the meaning of true repentance, which is from the inside to the outside. It flows from the heart which then leads to works of faith that shows the evidence of the faith in God, by then it becomes, we are doing good because we want to from our hearts without expectation as God has already done it for us. If not, when things go wrong or doesn’t goes as planned, one will blame God or start to think that God is unfair due to the fact that the works done was trying to earn from God and things will go well. That is deception & pride. It is not to say that all works are works of deception, this is a message from John to call upon all to look deeper, from the heart, we can always ask God to help us & He will always willingly help us to reach repentance. It’s not to discourage people from stopping all works of faith, priority is the heart.