I’m continuing my journey through Matthew and stopped for a moment on chapter 11. In verses 20 - 24 Jesus talks about these towns that had witnessed most of his miracles, but did not repent. It made me think of repentance and what it means to God. To see that Jesus was bothered by the ungrateful response of these two towns made me spend a moment to wonder why. Jesus goes on to say that if these miracles were performed in Sodom, they would’ve repented and in fact that on the day of judgement, it will be better for the Sodomites than for those who live in these unrepentant towns.
We are an imperfect people who always need to repent. No matter how far along we may think we have come, we are still far from God. God wants us to come to him, to love him, to be in this perfect relationship with him. God steps out and loves us in so many ways. When we refuse or ignore repentance, we are distancing ourselves from God; even more, we are refusing to move closer to him.
I think God is overjoyed when we repent. In true repentance, when our hearts are broken and our souls laid bare before him, he knows we love him and want to love him more. Even though there will be a time where we leave him for other gods, he looks forward to the time when he can win us back and we will repent and show our love for him once again.
