The call of Jesus to repentance

The eternal call from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for humanity is the call
of fellowship as sons and daughters of God. This is the heart of God. The Father
wants to have children like His Son. Because God is love, He wants to have children
who are created in His likeness and image. He wants us to live in harmony and love
with Him and with one another as His children, and as brothers and sisters to one
another. After the fall, Jesus redeemed us back to His eternal purpose. He gave us a
commandment to love one another as He loved us. “A new command I give you:
Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this
everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.” (John 13:34-
35 NIV)

Jesus paid the price for bringing reconciliation to us – even while we were still
enemies to God and to one another. But God sent His Son to reconcile us with
Himself and with one another. As human beings we were far away from God, without
hope and without God. When God chose the Jewish people, we the Gentiles, were
far from the promise of God: without Christ and without God. But because of the
blood of Christ, we who were once far away from the promise of God were brought
near to God. “But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far away have been
brought near by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:13).

At last, through the broken body of Christ and the shedding of His blood, we became
the children of God. In this way, God has created a family consisting not of members
of organisations or denominations, but children who have a covenant relationship
with God. And this is the commandment of Jesus to His children that will be the
testimony of His children here on this earth. Our testimony to this world is our love to
one another.

The major problem that we see in the body of Christ is our disobedience to the first
commandment Jesus has given us. This affects us in our relationship with God, our
relationship with one another, our relationship within our family, our relationship with
our children, and our testimony to the world.

This has given a foothold to the enemy to divide and conquer the church. It is
because of our pride and arrogance that we don’t want to come together to humble
ourselves before the Lord and repent and turn from our wickedness.

The door that has been opened by our disobedience must close by repentance and
obedience to the Lord.

The only way out of this crisis is to take practical actions as fathers and mothers of
faith as we seek the face of God in repentance and humility. Leaders must call their
congregations in the city as in the time of Joel. Individual prayers will not save the
generation, but a collective prayer and repentance is demanded by God to save a
generation. God is calling leaders and the people of God in general to cry out to Him.
The legacy that we pass on to our children will be our love to one another.
Discipleship is defined by Jesus Himself when He said “… by this everyone will know
that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” When our children see us loving
one another, it will be a model for them to love each other. When there is love, there
is the presence of God. But today we misrepresent the church of Jesus Christ (the
ekklesia) before the world and before our children.

Because of our division, there is no presence of God. As a result, the church

Jesus did not die on the cross to build the kind of ekklesia that we now see today.
No, Jesus died to unite not to divide. The churches in our time are not scriptural
churches and Jesus did not die to build denominational churches and ethnic
churches, but the one local church in any given city. The first century Apostles built
one local church in every city. There is an urgent call from heaven to repent and take
practical action by obeying the word of God.

1. Leaders and the people of God must repent before the Lord, thus bringing the
cycle of division to an end.
2. As leaders, we must stop undertaking our religious activities and give first
priority to discerning what is the current season of God.
3. The enemy is working on a united front while the church is divided and
competing with one another.
4. Our children are given other options by the enemy. We must cry out for our
children of this generation for God to rescue them.

God is calling us to repent, just as He called the Israelites in the time of the Old
Testament prophets such as Joel. It is a call of repentance:

“Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is
gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents
from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a
blessing— grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God. Blow the
trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. Gather the people,
consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those
nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber.
Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the portico and the altar.
Let them say, “Spare your people, Lord. Do not make your inheritance an object of
scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?” (Joel 2:13-17 NIV).