"His Voice Today"
January 3
🔸️ Salvation also needs 'fruit'! 🔸️
John the Baptist looked at the Pharisees and called them to "bear fruit of repentance"(Matthew 3:8). If we truly repented, such repentance will change our whole life!
The first thing we need to do after our repentance is to repay the damages/losses done by the mistakes we made in our past lives.
We read about Zacchaeus in the Gospel of Luke. As soon as Jesus entered his house, he realized his sins (Luke 19:1-10). That Zacchaeus was a man of money lover! However, he was well aware of what repentance is!! He also knew that in order to become a disciple of Jesus, he had to make amends for all the mistakes he had made in his life. He also knew that if he did so, he would have to meet huge loss of money! Because he cheated and stole the money of many!! That is why he told the Lord that he would return half of his property to the poor and to return four times of money to those whom he had wrongfully cheated.
Thus only when Zacchaeus said, "I will repay," Jesus did declare, "Salvation has come to this house"! The willing desire to "pay back" is one of the signs of true salvation (Luke 19:1-10).
If you have deceived some people and when you return the money to them, you should apologize for the mistake you made. In this case, tell them how this change happened in your life!
Are you unable to repay all the money immediately? That's fine! Repay them in installments. Not after Zacchaeus had repaid all the money.... God accepted him on the day when he decided to "pay back"!
Prayer:
Our heavenly Father! Help us to correct our corrupted life and to live the life as You wish and help us to find true salvation!! In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Author:
Brother Zac Poonen
Translated version of the Tamil "Family Meditation Book".
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