There Is Healing In Repentance

"If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob." The mouth of the LORD has spoken." (Isaiah 58: 9b - 14 - NIV)

"After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. "Follow me," Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." (Luke 27 - 32 - NIV)


Lord Jesus Christ, You are our Great Physician. Help us to go beyond the Pharisee mindset ("I can do it! I can secure my place, my status, through perfect religious practice"), and the tax-collector mindset (I can achieve the good life by taking any means necessary to shore up with material, emotional, or intellectual resources). Help us to drop those mindsets, go beyond them, accept our inability to make ourselves secure, and to place ALL our TRUST in God.

Pour out the healing balm of Your Spirit within us; clear our minds and change our outlook so that we may learn to live trusting in You and sharing with others Your Loving Kindness!