This is the first article explaining what I started in “Basics to Christian Understanding”, which will be followed by five more, this being the first.
This portion of scripture says in Hebrews 6:1 “leaving the principle doctrines of Jesus and go on to maturity”. The word leaving is speaking about the chapters before it. In a sense, he is telling them to quit being a baby and grow up. The chapter before and others are speaking of a more in-depth knowledge about the scriptures.
So we first have to learn and practice the 6 teachings listed in Hebrews chapter 6:1-3 which the writer infers are for, baby Christians. Once we learn about them and are doing them, we have a firm foundation in which to build our Christian life. Then we can understand what’s being spoken of in those other chapters. These 6 doctrines when we embrace them, will draw us closer to God.
The first thing we need to explore when considering these fundamental doctrines of Christ is “repentance from dead works”. This Has to be the starting place for every person that wants to know God. Dead works is simply everything you’ve done in your life before you be became a Christian and anything you do for selfish reasons afterwards.
What does repentance mean? A simple understanding of repentance is to change your mind. You are going in one direction and you turn 180° and go the other direction. That direction is towards Jesus and learning about Him. The greek word for repentance is “metanoia”, which means “to think differently”.
Almost to the person, everyone thinks about themselves first. Repentance means we start thinking about God first and ourselves second. This is very difficult for a person to do. In western societies, we are brought up to think of ourselves above everything else. It’s, me, me, me, that’s the way we think.
But God wants us to think about Him first. So we repent of the old way of thinking, of thinking about ourselves, and we put God first place. If we are truly born again, it is easy to put God first because the Holy Spirit is within us and He will guide us to put God first.
In our interactions with other people, we will find that we look out for their interest also. This will always be in a godly way. We will always want to treat other people with respect even if we don’t like them. Jesus said, love your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27). Sometimes that is very difficult to do, however, a repentant mind will start thinking this way. Repentance towards God shows that we love Him and we want to do the right thing, what He wants us to do.
It is not an easy thing to do, however, with the Holy Spirits help, He makes it easier every day for us. One other thing about repentance, this is a lifelong practice. Every time we do something that is not pleasing to God we turn to him and say Father forgive me. That is true repentance.
Repentance is not a one time occurrence. We will always find something new in God’s word and when we do, we follow it and not what we believed beforehand. Turn around and follow God or to put it another way, change your mind.
God’s word will always reveal something new to us, it shows us where we are wrong, even if we don’t like it, however, we must follow the word instead of what we believed beforehand. That is what the word repentance means for the Christian. Always turning from yourself to what God says.
After repentance from dead works, the next one is easy. “It’s faith toward God”, which is number two in our 6 teachings on “Basics of Christian Understanding”
MARANATHA