Time of Refreshing

Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Acts 3:19


This Sunday (tomorrow), I am beginning a series at University Baptist Church in Baton Rouge where I am the interim pastor. The series seeks to see ordinary people become heroes as God empowers them, and my first text is from Acts 4. Doing a bit of background, I came across a verse that I highlighted in a previous reading, the verse above.

I need times of refreshing. Like the rest of you, I am weary of politicians acting like middle schoolers on a playground (with apologies to middle schoolers). I am weary of (borrowing a phrase from Paul Turner's blog), paying taxes to a government that does not seem to represent me any more. I am weary of travel, though it energizes me to be around good and godly folk. I am weary of thinking that there isn't enough money for two kids in college and the seminary to keep going and, and, and.

So you wouldn't think that to find refreshing, I would have to look inward to do some soul searching, would you? You would think that I can blame politicians or late arriving airplanes, or "those people" who need to give to the seminary. You would think I could just make my kids work more hours to support themselves and for my wife to return to June Cleaver days with slippers ready when I get home.

None of that. The Scripture (context is Peter's sermon to a 1st century culture that is a lot like a 21st century culture)says that I need to repent and return. I would like to claim ignorance as Peter allows for the hearers in v. 17, but I can't. I am the one who insists on attitudes, appetites, and actions that do not put me closer to Jesus in my journey, but farther apart. I am the one who sins, not everyone else.

I am again sitting in the Atlanta airport where so much of my blogging is done. I helped Adam and Kristen get married today, a beautiful couple so refreshed by the ceremony celebrating their vows of faithfulness to God and to each other. But I am aware that I have taken for granted the covenant relationship that God allowed me to have through His Son.

So I repent. And return. And allow that once again, He wipes my sins away and allows my spirit to be refreshed from the presence of the Lord. If you join me, I bet worship will be better tomorrow.