Turning

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

TURNING

Acts 3:17-23

17 "Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. 18 But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer. 19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, 20 and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you — even Jesus. 21 He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. 22 For Moses said, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. 23 Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from among his people.'  

NIV

Here is another part of what Peter said that is difficult to cut up into pieces so we will have to deal with it in whole, but may have to camp out here for a couple of devotions. We should first understand that sin is an act of ignorance, at least until the truth is told to the one sinning in ignorance. Once we know the truth than sin becomes a willful act against God. True, we may not be able to withstand some temptations but we still know that what we are doing is sin. Before knowing the truth we were ignorant of his will and his ways for our life, although he said that he created all people with the knowledge of him, some which we were once a part of suppressed that knowledge of him by our evil deeds. But we repented as anyone must in the process of turning to God in order for our sins to be wiped out. That is the most refreshing our spirits could every experience, to know our sins are wiped out, that he wipes them out. He cleans the slate, washing us completely clean in the blood of Jesus. We are made new. Yet we continue to disappoint him, continuing to fail him, continuing to sin. Sure it was not like before, but each day we need to repent, each day we need to ask him to forgive. We are still saved, still having all our sin forgiven, not being cast out because we fail to do all we should, or fail to not do that which we should not. The truth is we repented, and we continue to repent for our failures, because we have turned to God and we have acknowledged him as our Lord and Savior and we trust him to continue to lead us, to correct us, and yes, even disciple us, when necessary, because he loves us with all his being. We cannot never forget to repent, and we can never ever turn anyway other than to God. If we start looking at anything else, with a wanting heart, other than God, we might be turning in some other direction other than in his. We cannot afford any turn other than to him and once we have turned we must stay the course, but first we must turn.