*🙏The Word Daily Devotion 🙏*
(Global Evangelical Church)
*📖REPENTANCE PAYS*
👉(Reading: Joel 2:12-14; 23-27)
🗓Friday, September 25
📜Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God for he is gracious and compassionate… and he relent from sending calamity *Joel 2:13 (NIV)*
📋Good things follow from repentance. Even if people sometimes don’t forgive, God will always forgive, cleanse and restore us; that is the most important thing. For the Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounds in love. In a poetic language, Joel depicted the blessings the people of God would receive from him if they repented of their sins. They would defeat their enemies (2:20) and their cattle would graze in green pasture (2:22). Furthermore, their land would yield bountiful harvests (2:24-26) and they would sense God’s presence anew (2:27). A story is told of a wife who had an illicit affair which resulted in the birth of their youngest child. She hid this from her husband till she could not bear the guilt any longer. Very distraught, she went to a counsellor who told her the need to confess her sin to God and her husband. She initially hesitated but later asked God to forgive her. Assured of God’s forgiveness, she confessed her sin to the husband. As she started to ask for forgiveness from the husband, he took her arms and said, ‘I forgive and I love our little boy just as much as if he came from me.’ This family lived happily later for the Lord. Do you cover your sins? Confess them and he will forgive you.
_*🛐Meditation And Prayer:*_ Compassionate and gracious God, I confess my sins to you and ask for forgiveness.
_*📚Further Reading:*_ Prov. 28:13; 1John 1:8-10
_*🔑Key Lesson:*_ Conviction makes us miserable; but confession brings joy and happiness.
_*◼The Bible in one year:*_ Zephaniah 1-3
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