For the love of Christ con­trols us, because we have con­clud­ed this: that one has died for all, there­fore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for them­selves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, there­fore, we regard no one accord­ing to the flesh. Even though we once regard­ed Christ accord­ing to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. There­fore, if any­one is in Christ, he is a new cre­ation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ rec­on­ciled us to him­self and gave us the min­istry of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion; that is, in Christ God was rec­on­cil­ing the world to him­self, not count­ing their tres­pass­es against them, and entrust­ing to us the mes­sage of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. There­fore, we are ambas­sadors for Christ, God mak­ing his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be rec­on­ciled to God. (2 Corinthi­ans 5:14–20)

God has come close to us. He became man in Jesus, he gave him­self, his life in order that we might be rec­on­ciled to him, that we might become his chil­dren.

In the begin­ning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the begin­ning with God. All things were made through him, and with­out him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the dark­ness, and the dark­ness has not over­come it. …The true light, which enlight­ens every­one, was com­ing into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own peo­ple did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become chil­dren of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. …No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. (John 1:1–18)

Receiv­ing Jesus means find­ing deep uni­ty with God; it is a com­plete­ness that we can attain only through him.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Who­ev­er has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own author­i­ty, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works them­selves.” (John 14:6–11)

Jesus gave tes­ti­mo­ny about the reli­a­bil­i­ty of his mes­sage through his own life. His pure, sin­less life is also an exam­ple for us. He did not mere­ly come so that we should pay trib­ute to him as a good per­son, a wise teacher, through whom we might also become bet­ter and wis­er. He spoke about things that touch our lives very deeply: we have to be born from above in order to gain eter­nal life….

Now there was a man of the Phar­isees named Nicode­mus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rab­bi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Tru­ly, tru­ly, I say to you, unless one is born again¹ he can­not see the king­dom of God.” Nicode­mus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a sec­ond time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Tru­ly, tru­ly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spir­it, he can­not enter the king­dom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spir­it is spir­it. Do not mar­vel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’” (John 3:1–7)

Every­one who is ready to hon­est­ly con­front him­self will see and expe­ri­ence the imper­fec­tion and empti­ness in his life. He knows that although he would like to love, he is often stub­born. Although he would like to be good, he is envi­ous. He knows that he often fills in his life with acts of com­pen­sa­tion, when he should actu­al­ly find the real aim….

Jesus said to her, “Every­one who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but who­ev­er drinks of the water that I will give him will nev­er be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eter­nal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your hus­band, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no hus­band.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in say­ing, ‘I have no hus­band’; for you have had five hus­bands, and the one you now have is not your hus­band. What you have said is true.” (John 4:13–18)

This woman longed for a spring which pro­vides liv­ing water, so that who­ev­er drinks of it will nev­er be thirsty again. Her life, her sins, her rela­tion­ships demon­strate that she had been seek­ing in vain; she did not find real ful­fil­ment. She had to accept that Jesus exposed what was in her heart and helped her to con­front her­self with her own life and with God. Whether we have the courage to be con­front­ed with God or whether we turn our back on him, one thing is clear: if God is miss­ing from our life there is noth­ing which sat­is­fies, noth­ing which pro­vides real life. As long as we refuse to accept the fact that we need help and lib­er­a­tion, we can­not approach him.

And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physi­cian, but those who are sick. I came not to call the right­eous, but sin­ners.” (Mark 2:17)

I can explain away my ego­tism by say­ing, “I just want to have a good time”; I can call my pride “atti­tude”, a lie “self-defence”, for­ni­ca­tion “love”, but none of that changes the fact that God gave us our life for anoth­er pur­pose. He gave us life so that we might live for oth­ers, serv­ing and lov­ing them, that we might be hon­est, faith­ful and righteous—just as he him­self is.

Many peo­ple put con­fi­dence in their own abil­i­ties, rely­ing on their feel­ings and their own strength, thus deceiv­ing them­selves. They only see the short-lived, quick­ly pass­ing ful­fil­ment and close their eyes to what has last­ing value—just like the younger son in Jesus’ para­ble who thought that he could man­age to be hap­py on his own….

And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of prop­er­ty that is com­ing to me.’ And he divid­ed his prop­er­ty between them. Not many days lat­er, the younger son gath­ered all he had and took a jour­ney into a far coun­try, and there he squan­dered his prop­er­ty in reck­less liv­ing. And when he had spent every­thing, a severe famine arose in that coun­try, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired him­self out to one of the cit­i­zens of that coun­try, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was long­ing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him any­thing. But when he came to him­self, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired ser­vants have more than enough bread, but I per­ish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heav­en and before you. I am no longer wor­thy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired ser­vants.”’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt com­pas­sion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heav­en and before you. I am no longer wor­thy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his ser­vants, ‘Bring quick­ly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fat­tened calf and kill it, and let us eat and cel­e­brate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to cel­e­brate.” (Luke15:11–24)

We have to find our way home—to him—because all of us are lost until we live in the Father’s house, close to him, in his pro­tect­ing, shel­ter­ing love. If we live with­out him, we turn away from the self-giv­ing love with which he drew close to us. This is the great­est sin: not to rec­on­cile to God. Every one of us needs God’s love and for­give­ness because he desires to set us free from dis­hon­esty, ego­tism, van­i­ty, envy, pride, lovelessness—from all the sin in our lives.

For we our­selves were once fool­ish, dis­obe­di­ent, led astray, slaves to var­i­ous pas­sions and plea­sures, pass­ing our days in mal­ice and envy, hat­ed by oth­ers and hat­ing one anoth­er. But when the good­ness and lov­ing kind­ness of God our Sav­iour appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in right­eous­ness, but accord­ing to his own mer­cy, by the wash­ing of regen­er­a­tion and renew­al of the Holy Spir­it, whom he poured out on us rich­ly through Jesus Christ our Sav­iour, so that being jus­ti­fied by his grace we might become heirs accord­ing to the hope of eter­nal life. (Titus 3:3–7)

There are points in which we can per­haps change our­selves with our own strength or willpow­er. There are mis­takes which we can per­haps cor­rect. But that does not pro­vide us with new life, it does not change us to the core. We can only have real life, eter­nal life, when God draws close to us and gives us life….

If we con­tin­ue to live with­out God, as the world does, the deci­sions we make with­out God dis­tort our char­ac­ter in many ways. It is not enough to gauge or com­pare our­selves with oth­ers…. Jesus showed us the stan­dard he set….

And Jesus said, “Nei­ther do I con­demn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” (John 8:11)

Per­haps you have nev­er done as many bad things as this woman whose sto­ry is described in John 8:1–11; per­haps, in your own way, you are a good per­son; per­haps you even revere God in your own way—nevertheless you might be miss­ing some­thing….

And as he was set­ting out on his jour­ney, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inher­it eter­nal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the com­mand­ments: ‘Do not mur­der, Do not com­mit adul­tery, Do not steal, Do not bear false wit­ness, Do not defraud, Hon­our your father and moth­er.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, look­ing at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have trea­sure in heav­en; and come, fol­low me.” Dis­heart­ened by the say­ing, he went away sor­row­ful, for he had great pos­ses­sions. And Jesus looked around and said to his dis­ci­ples, “How dif­fi­cult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the king­dom of God!” And the dis­ci­ples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Chil­dren, how dif­fi­cult it is to enter the king­dom of God! It is eas­i­er for a camel to go through the eye of a nee­dle than for a rich per­son to enter the king­dom of God.” And they were exceed­ing­ly aston­ished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impos­si­ble, but not with God. For all things are pos­si­ble with God.” (Mark 10:17–27)

Jesus did not run after that young man to see if he would at least be ready to give away half of his pos­ses­sions. Giv­ing a part of what I have is not enough. Liv­ing an eth­i­cal life, being reli­gious, stick­ing to cer­tain prin­ci­ples is not suf­fi­cient. Jesus calls you to sur­ren­der your whole life to God, to place your long­ings, plans, and wounds in his hands…. Every­one has his own “wealth” which sep­a­rates him from God if he is not ready to give it up in order to do God’s will. Per­haps it is not pos­ses­sions, but knowl­edge, fame or a rela­tion­ship….

Who­ev­er loves father or moth­er more than me is not wor­thy of me, and who­ev­er loves son or daugh­ter more than me is not wor­thy of me. And who­ev­er does not take his cross and fol­low me is not wor­thy of me. Who­ev­er finds his life will lose it, and who­ev­er los­es his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:37–39)

Many peo­ple want­ed to be with Jesus, because they were fas­ci­nat­ed by his love, puri­ty, wis­dom and good­ness. But when Jesus began to speak about what it means to fol­low him, many left him. Repen­tance, which con­sists of receiv­ing Jesus, is nev­er lim­it­ed to an emo­tion­al expe­ri­ence, a burst of feel­ings, but is a deep deci­sion to be obe­di­ent, to allow him to be Lord and trans­form my very being.

And call­ing the crowd to him with his dis­ci­ples, he said to them, “If any­one would come after me, let him deny him­self and take up his cross and fol­low me. For who­ev­er would save his life will lose it, but who­ev­er los­es his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mark 8:34–35)

While many peo­ple are touched by Jesus in some way, we can­not set lim­its on him. We can­not accept from him only what seems good and pleas­ant to us, want­i­ng the “bless­ings” while at the same time refus­ing to car­ry the cross, which involves being despised by the world like he was, shar­ing his fate, being obe­di­ent till death….

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, a kind of “repen­tance” is often preached today in which, with ref­er­ence to the grace of God, a per­son is not required to take up the cross dai­ly, where they do not have to lose their life—or if they do, then only lat­er as the cul­mi­na­tion of a long and drawn out process of repen­tance. In this way the truth is dis­tort­ed. There is, how­ev­er, only one truth. It is only through acknowl­edg­ing and accept­ing God’s word that we can have eter­nal life.

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are tru­ly my dis­ci­ples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are off­spring of Abra­ham and have nev­er been enslaved to any­one. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Tru­ly, tru­ly, I say to you, every­one who com­mits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house for ever; the son remains for ever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:31–36)

Receiv­ing Jesus means iden­ti­fy­ing our­selves com­plete­ly with the truth he revealed. Then it is no longer I who set the stan­dard for my life. It is no longer my plans, my aims, my con­cept of the world, myself and God that mat­ter. Instead what mat­ters is the real­i­ty.

I appeal to you there­fore, broth­ers, by the mer­cies of God, to present your bod­ies as a liv­ing sac­ri­fice, holy and accept­able to God, which is your spir­i­tu­al wor­ship. Do not be con­formed to this world, but be trans­formed by the renew­al of your mind, that by test­ing you may dis­cern what is the will of God, what is good and accept­able and per­fect. (Romans 12:1–2)

The truth is not a sub­jec­tive notion which I can reshape to suit my own ideas. I am the one who has to adapt and sub­mit myself to the truth. Jesus expects us to trust him and every­thing he said uncon­di­tion­al­ly. Only the truth can sat­is­fy us. Only in the truth can we find true love.

Who­ev­er has my com­mand­ments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and man­i­fest myself to him. (John 14:21)

Receiv­ing Jesus, there­fore, does not only mean that I believe that he lived, died and rose from the dead, but that I sub­mit my life to every­thing that he revealed. Pray­ing a “sinner’s prayer” after being emo­tion­al­ly moved by a ser­mon is not suf­fi­cient….

When Zac­cha­eus the tax-col­lec­tor received the call of Jesus he was moved by the love and mer­cy Jesus showed him. But he did not stop there; he was will­ing to change his life and to act. He was imme­di­ate­ly ready to give up every­thing in his life which was not in accor­dance with God’s will.

He entered Jeri­cho and was pass­ing through. And there was a man named Zac­cha­eus. He was a chief tax col­lec­tor and was rich. And he was seek­ing to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small of stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zac­cha­eus, hur­ry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” So he hur­ried and came down and received him joy­ful­ly. And when they saw it, they all grum­bled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sin­ner.” And Zac­cha­eus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defraud­ed any­one of any­thing, I restore it four­fold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today sal­va­tion has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abra­ham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:1–10)

Liv­ing accord­ing to God’s will…. The gospel is pre­cise­ly this “good news” of God’s grace that enables us to fol­low Jesus, to love with a pure, true love, just as he did. If we accept this glad­ly, it will bear fruit in our lives as well….

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inex­press­ible and filled with glo­ry, obtain­ing the out­come of your faith, the sal­va­tion of your souls. …As obe­di­ent chil­dren, do not be con­formed to the pas­sions of your for­mer igno­rance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your con­duct, since it is writ­ten, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impar­tial­ly accord­ing to each one’s deeds, con­duct your­selves with fear through­out the time of your exile, know­ing that you were ran­somed from the futile ways inher­it­ed from your fore­fa­thers, not with per­ish­able things such as sil­ver or gold, but with the pre­cious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb with­out blem­ish or spot. He was fore­known before the foun­da­tion of the world but was made man­i­fest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believ­ers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glo­ry, so that your faith and hope are in God. Hav­ing puri­fied your souls by your obe­di­ence to the truth for a sin­cere broth­er­ly love, love one anoth­er earnest­ly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of per­ish­able seed but of imper­ish­able, through the liv­ing and abid­ing word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glo­ry like the flower of grass. The grass with­ers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains for ever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you. (1 Peter 1:8–9,14–25)

Repen­tance, there­fore, is vis­i­ble, tan­gi­ble and real in a person’s life, because Jesus’ sal­va­tion puri­fies us from our for­mer pas­sions “for a sin­cere broth­er­ly love” and gives us the strength to “love one anoth­er earnest­ly from a pure heart”. This is the fruit which can­not be imi­tat­ed and that only his pow­er can cause in us. It is pos­si­ble to do many things “in the name of Jesus”, and nev­er­the­less deceive our­selves….

Not every­one who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the king­dom of heav­en, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heav­en. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not proph­esy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then will I declare to them, “I nev­er knew you; depart from me, you work­ers of law­less­ness.” (Matthew 7:21–23)

Jesus brought God’s love to us in order that through him we might also be able to love. He does not invite us to a reli­gious pro­gramme, but to self-devo­tion. The first Chris­tians, who repent­ed through the preach­ing of the apos­tles, under­stood this mes­sage and shared their lives with one anoth­er. Day by day they lov­ing­ly devot­ed their lives to each oth­er (see Acts 2:37–47).

Beloved, let us love one anoth­er, for love is from God, and who­ev­er loves has been born of God and knows God. Any­one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made man­i­fest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the pro­pi­ti­a­tion for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one anoth­er. No one has ever seen God; if we love one anoth­er, God abides in us and his love is per­fect­ed in us. (1 John 4:7–12)

If you repent, if you receive Jesus and, through him, the love of God, you will be able to join the apos­tle in say­ing:

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the broth­ers. Who­ev­er does not love abides in death. Every­one who hates his broth­er is a mur­der­er, and you know that no mur­der­er has eter­nal life abid­ing in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the broth­ers. (1 John 3:14–16)

1. Or from above. ↩