Jesus came to be our King first of all, then our Savior.  The title on the cross was not Savior but King. He is the King who saves His people.  True repentance is a condition for salvation. Repentance is the first essential condition of genuine conversion.  Repentance is not an optional extra but a fundamental requirement of forgiveness. Repentance is also a lifestyle.  We are to be living in an attitude of repentance ever since we were converted.  Everyday repentance, is the attitude by which we can receive the King of the kingdom in to our lives . Peter said to them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.  In a world without moral absolutes repentance is core to seeing true change. Repentance (metanoia) To repent means to change your mind. Literally it means “above or beyond the mind.” We thought dumb things about God, heaven, hell and our own place in the world; our picture of Him was too small, too silly or plain wrong. We  lived a life that was stupid, selfish and false. Now under the flame of God’s holy truth by His Spirit and His Word, we see everything in a different light and the word that comes to our heart with force is this: change your mind. We change what we think about Jesus Christ.  He is not a historic figure or a great teacher; He is the ruler of History and God manifest in the flesh. He is Creator of heaven and earth and all things were made by him. Because He is Lord of all and the only Saviour, He commands our allegiance.

Friend, as King He has the right to rule in every life.  He is King; we can submit or rebel but he is still King.

John the Baptist cried out to the passing crowds and many were baptized in readiness to receive the Messiah. Mark1. 2. His message was repentance, because only repentance prepares the way for the Lord’s coming into our lives.  Only repentance prepares us for his rule and kingdom. Matthew 4.17.  Obstacles of sin, rebellion, uncleanness, pride, and dead tradition are removed and we make ready a way for the Spirit’s outpouring. The kingdom and repentance are inextricably tied together.  God desires His will to be done in and through people. In fact the kingdom means: God’s rule, where Gods will in done.  Whenever a person knows the thoughts of the King and does them the kingdom is expressed. The kingdom is righteousness, its peace, its joy, is power its love, its victory over enemies, its provision for our needs, its healing for our troubled soul. Its restoration, is the heartbeat of God manifested in your life; that is why the kingdom is good news; the gospel of the kingdom. The good news is that God has purposed to bring His kingdom to earth. He said “For as truly as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord.” Our challenge is to know His thoughts and then to obey them. God said in the Old Testament “My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways” but now the Holy Spirit is come to teach us His thoughts.

Friend, living in a state of repentance, soft toward Gods voice is the first step to begin to tune to His thoughts.

For a few years after I began in ministry, I struggled with doubt about my ability as a preacher.  Anneke and I went to Australia for a holiday and there God spoke to me from this verse in Philippians. “With all boldness I will be magnified in my body”.   I realized the opposite is true; that without boldness Christ will not be magnified in my body.  Too many time our effectiveness sabotaged buy wrong thinking about ourselves.  Before God begins to build in to our life He requires that we have a good foundation in our life. We can conform to the expected behavior on the outside, but have major struggles on the inside of us and people may never be aware of it.  The anointing comes to preach to the poor and to heal the broken hearted and till our hearts are healed we cannot be whole hearted. While people are still captive they are not free to be all that God want them to be and blinded by lies or the demonic they won’t be aware of who God has made them.  Many times that which God is able to do now, is limited by the degree we have opened our heart to His touch.  The past naturally affects our future. The book of Hebrews 6, states that we can only go on to maturity once the foundation has been laid.  That foundation is clearly laid out as repentance from dead works and faith towards God, then baptisms in water and in the Holy Spirit.

Friend, all of these are foundational to our growth. If you have not been baptized in the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues you don’t yet have the supernatural equipment you need to face our supernatural enemies.

The prodigal son took all the good things of life; his health, his life, his energy, his privilege, his freedom and his knowledge and spent them on pleasure, possessions, popularity and fame in an effort to find satisfaction. When you don't know your Father well or you don’t know who you truly are, you’ll abuse the Fathers love. The young man was stupid but not stubborn and eventually decided to return to the blessing of his father. So he left the far off country and made the long journey home to get things right with God and man.

In the far country there seems to be the freedom to enjoy harlots, parties, drugs and waste money but it is not home.  There is still want, there's still need and it ends badly; living a life like a pig, and eating food not fit for human consumption. When you’re hungry you’ll feed on husks but when you’re starving you’ll return home to your father. 2 Corinthians 5.21 says that when a man is in Christ, he finds all that he needs and becomes everything he can never become himself. The person that puts his faith in Christ as their Saviour becomes fully satisfied.

Friend, you can try your best to satisfy your hungry self, but you will realize satisfaction cannot be bought with money but can be found by returning home.

God is righteous and heaven is for the righteousness; therefore everybody in heaven must be righteous. Under the law people had to be righteous to enter paradise. Under Grace, people still have to be righteous to enter heaven.  There is no change.  In fact Jesus said except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees you could never enter the kingdom of heaven. The only thing that has changed is how we become righteous and how it is obtained.    We can now be righteous before God by faith.  It is not a lesser righteousness, but a different means to being right before God.  It's only difference is how we become righteous. Jesus is the righteousness of God and if you have Jesus and you have righteousness.   Rom 3:26  God demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. God is not indifferent to sin but holy and must condemn sin so Jesus was punished for our unrighteousness. Now our faith in the Saviour is accounted for righteousness.  Our faith justifies us – or declares to be as if we had never sinned.

Friend, it doesn’t mean we are righteous in our self nor is it legal fiction where God says we are righteousness when we are not. But we are actually righteousness in Christ or because Christ is within us, we truly are righteous.

The town was exceedingly cultured and every four years they held the Isthmus games.  The greatest prize was for rhetoric, not running and every four the came early to practice. These speakers were always young, handsome well-dressed, highly educated males.   In those times they were like film stars league stars rolled into one and they could really wow the crowd. Many of them were trained in Alexandria University of rhetoric.  So to this town Paul comes probably during the time of the games when hundreds of thousands of people dwelt in tents. Paul was a tent maker who along with Apollo gained some converts and gathered them together as a church. Of course just like all other Corinthians, they were divided and contentious having their own favorite speakers and comparing Paul and Apollo’s as preachers.  Paul says everything about what you think is wrong.   Paul says it pleases God that through the foolish message of the cross to save people and the message was foolish to the Greeks and the Romans. Roman gods were powerful vindictive and larger-than-life. The idea of a god that could be crucified was ridiculous and actually scandalous. The Romans at time never talked about crucifixion.  It was the worst taboo subject and they never wished that on the worst enemy as it was not about pain but about shame. Paul said it was a miracle you believed the gospel.  It was a ridiculous message to you; I was a ridiculous speaker to you, so it is a proof of Gods power at work!

Friend it was the power of God that saved them and it is the power of God that still saves us.

The advert for Wendy’s fast food store, says “if you come here hungry and thirsty you will always leave satisfied. ‘God has made us in a way that desires satisfaction. If we are hungry we are motivated to get satisfied.  If you are thirsty, you do what it takes to get a drink.   Imagine if you never felt hungry, so you never ate.  One day you just be too tired to get food or if you had to set phone reminders every four hours to remind you to eat.  We know this is true and not just about food. Righteousness is doing the right things, being right and doing right. If we do a job and do it right, we are satisfied.  We want to play well in the game in the weekend and when we do we are happy we are satisfied.   To a degree we can do all the above in every area of our natural life we are satisfied to a degree and for a while but we get thirsty again. The woman at Samaria had a husband but he only lasted two years so she had to find another husband.   She came to get drink but it only lasted a day. She had to come again to the well. So she was interested when Jesus said ‘if you drink the water I give you, you will never thirst again.  Jesus was not talking about natural thirst but spiritual thirst and spiritual water.  Because God has made man to have hunger and thirst  in their soul, men actually can’t be fully satisfied till  he is filled with what God made him to be filled with,  which is Righteousness. If you have a spiritual hunger and thirst you will be satisfied.  Lucifer was hungry and ambitious for position and power but it never got to be satisfied, even though he had the highest position possible in heaven.  Nebuchadnezzar King to the Babylonian empire, had every possible natural delight, he may have felt he was the coolest but he never was satisfied.

Friend, David worked out how to be really satisfied. Psa 17:15  As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.  Becoming one with God and like God in character, is the one thing that satisfies. And it is possible though the gift of Jesus to us.

Blind Bart was waiting for had waited a long time for this moment.  When he heard that Jesus was coming by, he lifted his voice above the babble of excitement from the gathered crowd, and shouted “Son of David have mercy on me.”  When Jesus stopped and healed his eyes blind, Bart immediately followed the Lord on the road.  The Son of uncleanness followed the Son of Righteousness.  So when God wants to heal the way we walk, He heals the eyes of our heart. What is important to understand is that the feet represent the condition of the heart in the disciple. The feet only follow our heart.  The Feet only go where heart has already been. So to direct our feet, He heals our heart.    God doesn’t start or finish with rules.  God doesn’t try to change the way we act, He changes our heart. Old Testament Israel, had a change of religion but they never had change of heart, till finally God the Father said “I’m going to show you My heart”. When the saw the heart of Father, revealed by Christ on the cross, their hearts were changed and their lifestyle changed. That is how our hearts are changed; by seeing the heart of God, in Christ.

Friends, God is not seeking to change our behavior but our identity, because a person with a new identity lives a new life.   A person with a new heart can and will change themselves.