Day #253 - Rend your Heart

The Presence - A Devotional for living in Thanksgiving, Worship and Wonder

““Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing— grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God.”

‭‭Joel‬ ‭2‬:‭12‬-‭14‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Photo by Ante Gudelj on Unsplash

Have you ever seen a child give you lip service but you can tell their heart is not in it?

One of the things we look for as parents is to see our children be genuine when they apologize or when they are instructed to do the right thing. Sometimes its even a little comical to watch a kid try and fake their way through an apology when you can tell their heart is not in it. But how rewarding it is as a parent to watch your child put their heart in true repentance and in right actions!

In Joel, God has judged His people Israel with a great army of locusts and a great drought that brought destruction to the land. God lets the people now in Joel 2 that He is not looking for an outward form in repentance, He is looking for people to bring Him their heart. God’s judgments are to give people an opportunity to return to Him. His heart “relents from sending calamity.”

So what is the key to restoring the blessing of “the Presence” in our lives? According to this text, it is “rending our heart” instead of outwardly performing. We are to return, fast and pray, and weep and mourn over our sins. But again, the key is that our heart is honest before the Lord. The Lord is not looking for religious ritual and form that is devoid of heartfelt contrition and obedience. God is looking to restore us should we return to Him with all of our hearts.

This restoration of God’s presence is revival. “Revival is God’s response to our response to His revelation,” Pastor Mark Brattrud. God is longing to revive us when we have turned from in our lives, our homes, our churches and our nations. Repentance is often looked at as a negative thing in our lives because it involves humility as well as confession of our sins and shortcomings. But repentance restores us and our land so that we can bring our offerings back to God. Our offerings represent His presence in our lives, the place where God’s glory encounters us.

Come before the Lord with a genuine heart of repentance and He will receive you. He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. The Lord will receive you when you return to Him and rend your heart.

Mighty God, I love you! You are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. You will receive me. Even then, at times I stumble and turn from You. I return to You and rend my heart for my sins, shortcomings and faults. I mourn over my sins and know that You will bless me as You meet with me. In Jesus name, amen.

*Pastor Mark Brattrud preached for our church some of the best sermons I’ve ever heard on revival. You can watch them on YouTube. Here is the first video in the series of 5 messages on revival:

https://www.youtube.com/live/WYIzwCpMf20?si=IJO5qh9Ch3GbWqzs