Unrepentance

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
 Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.     --  Isaiah 55:8

In his seminal "Agreeing With God," my beloved teacher Derek Prince emphasized that it's critical we agree with God's definitions.  What God says anything is, is what it absolutely is.

Last week I was meditating on repentance.  I often find it helpful, in getting a clear and full idea of a subject, to consider its opposite, so I was searching for scriptural references to "unrepentance," "unrepentant," and related words.

There were none, in any of the top three English translations of the Bible (the King James, New American Standard, and NIV versions).  I found it remarkable that the Bible speaks so often of "repentance" and "repenting," but not once of its opposite.  But clearly God thinks in different terms than I do.

When I told Donna about it, she immediately came up with the same word I did, as scripture's characterization of the unrepentant: "stiff-necked."

That's the beginning of another study, of what scripture says about being "stiff-necked."

But in the meantime...while I was working in the garden yesterday and pondering these things, a thought came very clearly to mind.  We often hear these days of public figures who are publicly shamed for telling lies or doing wrong.  It is amazing to me how often they justify their lies and unrighteousness, rather than repenting of them.

The term that's commonly used to described their self-justification is "doubling down."  Rather than admit they've lied or done anything wrong, they angrily "double down" on their sin.

The thought God put strongly in my mind is that I should think "stiff-necked," and "unrepentant," each time I hear that someone "doubles down" on his lies and unrighteousness.