Repent, Jesus said, and the objective was that His followers would see and experience the Kingdom that was in their midst. The problem, or at least the problem that kept them from seeing the problem, was, that they looked with old eyes at a new thing. Clearly, those who followed Jesus had to change their whole perceptual framework to really grasp His message. More so, they had to make this shift to truly receive the Kingdom.
Repentance, means to change the way we take in reality. Like looking through a new prescription for our glasses everything we have always seen now looks different. The change in us allows us to see the world and the Kingdom around us in new ways
It is important to understand that the God and Gospel who never change, also never gets old. More so, it is important that the Person and the Message never become so familiar that we lose that gratitude and awe that comes from the Presence of Life-Changing-Truth. One of the greatest compliments to me as a teacher is when veterans of the church world come to me after a teaching and say, “I have never heard that before” The truth is that there is no new truth.
But we must be able to look from new angles, use new words, see new perspectives without relinquishing the solid anchor of unchanging Truth.
We must help people repent. We must lead people to see old things in new ways. If the disciples could not see new things because of old eyes, then what if we could help people see through new eyes. Then everything would seem, and function as if new.
A spiritual leader must recognize that the One who Never Changes is also New Every Morning. That the Ancient of Days also came as an infant. A spiritual leader must know that if God is truly Infinite, then flowing from His Being is newness every second. Helping people to see in a world that is material and deteriorating, requires opening the eyes of our hearts to a world which is soaked in revelation and is being made new.
Seeing that, we must then lead others to see.
