Since 2012, She Reads Truth has maintained a singular mission: to be women in the Word of God every day. Ten years later, our community includes “Shes” from across the globe, but our mission hasn’t changed.
Reading Scripture together is the centerpiece of what we do at She Reads Truth. As we spend time as a community reading This Is The Church, we encourage you to start by reading the daily Scripture on your own. Then join us here to engage and encourage one another as we respond to what we’ve read. Each day for this series, we’ll include a brief summary of the reading along with a prompt for conversation.
As a people still being transformed into the likeness of Christ, the Church has fallen short and will continue to. Until Christ’s return, the Church is called to both individual and corporate repentance, knowing that Christ is faithful to forgive, sustain, and perfect His people.
Discussion Question: How is repentance demonstrated in today’s reading?
Take time to reflect on your Scripture reading and today’s question. Share what you are learning with others in the community in the comments.
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54 thoughts on "A People in Progress"
Despite all of our sin and wrong doing, God is constantly there with forgiveness. And to receive forgiveness we must first offer it to others. And we need not to judge other, God does all the judging. We need only lead others with love.
It shows true, honest confession of wrongdoing with no justifying or qualifying. It shows humbly asking God’s forgiveness. It shows God’s amazing grace and love. It shows receiving God’s forgiveness.
It shows that we need to give others the grace that God gives us. He gives us the opportunity to repent and others as well. Some people choose to and others do not God continually shows his grace to everyone not only in this community but all around the world and that is beautiful!
Seek first God and His Righteousness and all these things will be added unto you! (probably not per se). Seek and ye shall find. Thank Jesus for being our Saviour! Our absolution!
In James 4:5, it talks about making sure your motives are pure when you ask God for something, because he knows the desires of your heart. You have to repent in order to be right with God. You have to have a pure heart and not be in the ways of the world as James 4 says.
You don’t not desire a sacrifice or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God
In order to have a right relationship with God again
I love that we are being made into the people who God has called us to be. We are being transformed little by little every day. It may not always be obvious, but if we are drawing close to God, he will change us❤️
Hello She’s! What a challenging day of reading. I love in the podcast when they said that we have to trust that God is transforming other people. That is so tough because I have been so wounded by the Church and wish they would repent but I have to give them grace as God gives me everyday. The Lord is who we sin against as He is our example of perfection.
This part in Daniel jumped out at me today: “For we are not presenting our petitions before you based on our righteous acts, but based on your abundant compassion.”
I love the focus on who God is and not what we have done. That’s where my focus should be when I pray, and when I stand confident. It’s not because of who I am but Whose I am, and who He is. What a wonderful reminder.
It talk about how we should repent and ask God for forgiveness. We see how Daniel confesses his sins and ask for forgiveness.
Not only do we confess our sins but turn around- a complete 180 as well. We stop what we are doing, and do what is right. I love David’s Psalms with regards to repentance. He is honest with God, which is why he was called a man after God’s own heart!
6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. – James 4:6-8. I love reading in James. He speaks truth so well. Repentance is hard because admitting that I did something wrong is embarrassing. I want to do right and yet I fail everyday. But God. He didn’t design this for my shame. He designed it for my benefit. For my salvation. So that I can be near to him because he wants me close. So encouraging and special. Thank you God!
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Jill Ravensborg – the Daniel 9 passages are examples of corporate repentance. The Revelation passages are examples of Christ calling for corporate repentance.
There are other examples in Scripture, but I hope that these in today’s reading help to show when corporate repentance is needed.
I do not understand the part of the reflection about the Church being called to corporate repentance- I do understand individual repentance and the scriptures that directly call us to that, just not the corporate part. Does anyone have verses that say this for me to study?
We must acknowledge our sins, know that we have done wrong and do all that we can to correct ourselves from committing those sins again. Lord I ask for your forgiveness in not making you a priority in my life until recently. Please continue to show me down the path you’ve paved in front of me.
We must acknowledge our sins, know that we have done wrong and true
Repentance is demonstrated by humbling ourselves before God, confessing our sin, asking for His forgiveness and mercy, and turning away from the sin and back to Him.
I feel like you can see the repentance when it was explained that you can come back to God. You can repent and come back from your dark place of Sin like David. You can call out in prayer what you have done and ask for forgiveness. You can change.
God loves us through it all. But how sweet it is when we walking alongside him. His promises to draw nearer to us when we draw hearer to him warm my heart daily! Devil flee-Lord be with me
I am not only to gain information about my God from reading His Word. I am also to be transformed into His likeness. The change in me is evidence of the submission of my will to His. This change should be apparent to others. I should be different. Not perfect but definitely different. When I fail to act as Jesus would, I ask for His forgiveness and I choose to follow Him more closely, more thoughtfully, more deliberately. It is not a burden or a chore or an obligation. It is gratitude and joy and intimate relationship. Repentance draws me closer and strengthens our bond. The sin that separates is cast away and there is nothing left but love. I am never separated from His great love.
I need to repent. I have been so distracted by many things. Nothing is more important than the Lord. God, I am so sorry for my distraction. You are my first love. Nothing is bigger than you.
Repentance is confessing your sins to God and turning completely away from your sin. Repentance is coming to God as filthy as you are and asking for forgiveness. Repentance is not doing good works before coming to God, it is coming to God with your mess and asking Him to forgive and transform you.
Repentance is a change of mind that leads to the change of outward behaviors. Repentance is like a continued course correcting as we go to the celestial city on our pilgrimage journey (The Pilgrim’s Progress). Paul wrote something here that made me stop on my track, “And now I rejoice, not because you were made sorrowful, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you felt the sorrow that God HAD INTENDED, and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. Consider what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what zeal, what vindication! In every way you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter” (2 Corinthians 7: 9-11). And Ecclesiastes 7:3 says, “Sorrow is better than laughter, For when a face is sad (deep in thought) the heart may be happy [because it is growing in wisdom] AMP”. Thank you Lord for working in us through godly sorrows, leading us to salvation through repentance. Lifting up our community in prayers. Praising God for each and every one of us. Be blessed dear beautiful sisters.
Confession comes before repentance. Confession is agreeing with God about my sin and bringing it into the Light. Repentance is turning from my sin to walk in fellowship with the Lord in the Light of His Love. ♥️ Thank you, Lord, for the words in Scripture to confess my sin and for Your work in me to form me into the image of Your Son, Jesus Christ.
Acknowledging your sin is the first step, asking God for forgiveness and asking for forgiveness from the ones you hurt is important. These passages are showing us the path of forgiveness and what should happen when walk that path.
Letters to first century churches, John’s revelation to the churches, 2 men who would have known the Laws of Moses and how the Israelites struggled to fulfill their part of the covenant….it’s so repetitive, the need for repentance, the call to repentance, the plea to others to repentance, the contrition before God by even big men of faith…. it’s encouraging to know the Bible if chalk full of examples of the cyclical nature of growing in faith while being stuck this side of heaven. I am so grateful for the reminder today that each new day is a chance to bask in that unending mercy and bottomless fountain of grace and redemption. It’s a gift I don’t deserve!
Before we can sincerely and whole-heartily repent we have to realize and acknowledge that we have sinned or done something wrong. Until we realize that we have sinned against God, Christ and the Holy Spirit then our plea for forgiveness and repentance is worthless and I believe God will turn a “deaf ear”.
Be blessed and know no matter what you do God will forgive you if you ask Him for forgiveness sincerely.
Repentance is acknowledging our sins to God, knowing He is the judge of all sins. Have a deeper purification of moral life, obedient action, clean heart, steadfast spirit, genuinely worship our gracious God.
Acknowledging that we are sinners, from conception. He is our true redeemer. We must repent every day, for His mercies are new every morning.
Acknowledging our sin, seeing it the way God sees it, being truly broken hearted and regretful over it, and turning away from it is true repentance
Repentance starts with humility and recognizing our deep need for our Savior. In a world that celebrates us just as we are and says there’s nothing wrong with us, repentance starts with recognizing that yes, we are so loved by God, but that we have a sinful nature in us that causes us to fall short every single day. Without recognizing that there is a need for a Savior that we could never fill ourselves, we will never come to repentance. Praise be to God that He offers a way out of a life of slavery to our sinful nature. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is FREEDOM!
When God reveals to us the Truth of His Word, we are to hold fast to it by remembering it. We are to use that Truth to examine our lives. Where our lives do not mirror the Truth, we are to repent. We are to turn away from the sin and impurity in our lives and practice the righteousness that Jesus has provided for us by His gracious provision of salvation when He died on the cross on our behalf.
Let me be humble, acknowledge my sin and repent daily. My sin highlights my need for God. The Lord is the only one that can save me from my sin.
He already has saved us.
Thank You, Lord.
God will forgive us when we sin
In today’s reading, repentance starts with an acknowledgment that we have fallen short of God’s design for our lives and ends with glorifying God for lifting us back up. True repentance is life changing and life giving.
Having an open heart and humbleness before the Lord. That’s when restoration then sanctification can happen. Do we have humble hearts? I for sure need to continue to work on this from a strong personality, wanting to be right and arguing my opinion. Because I believe not only to be humble in front of God, but to be humble and gentle around other Christians and those who are not is what we are called to be. Always an example, and we are not to not only repent to God but to humble ourselves to others (family members seem to be the hardest!).
Be sure to listen to the SRT Podcast for the week! And let’s bookmark all the prayer requests from yesterday and commit to pray for our sisters! Have a great day She’s!
Daniel’s prayer stands out to me as a cry of repentance for us today. Also the letters to the churches in Revelations provide warnings to be taken seriously today.
True repentance begins with acknowledging the need to get right with God first because only then can everything else fall into place.
There is so much hope in todays reading – hope for a people who are so so broken. Does it really apply to our world though? How do we learn to have a posture of repentance? It seems almost impossible that a people as broken as we are as a whole could change and find God. So, it starts with us – one at a time – being an example of living forgiveness, grace, humility, and repentance. As individuals in a larger body of the church we have the power to display Gods love.
I’m so thankful to serve a forgiving and merciful God because I fall short every day; we fall short every day. Even some of the most faithful men in the Bible fell short every day.
In todays reading we see David, mind you a Man after Gods own Heart, repenting to God. He confesses that he has done evil. He asks God to forgive him. And then gives an action he will do by stating “I will teach the rebellious your ways and sinners will return to you”. My favorite part of David’s repentance prayer is when he states “The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God.” Jesus made our ultimate sacrifice. All God wants from us is to truly be sorry and shameful for the actions that we do to sin against Him.
We also see a repentance from Daniel. Daniel was known for his faithfulness to God. Yet, Daniel too came before God asking for his forgiveness and deliverance of Israel after confessing their wicked ways.
I love these prayers of repentance from faithful men in the Old Testament. They show us the importance of humbling ourselves before Christ daily.
Thank you, Lord, for your mercies that endure forever.
Metanoia (true repentance) comes when we draw near to God and He draws near to us (James 4:8). Sin cannot exist where He is. We know this. We respond to His light by releasing the darkness of sin in humble confession. My mind and purpose changes from prideful intention in remembrance of God’s loyal love to willful obedience admitting my failure. Do I welcome His Light, exposing the darkness? Yes, and He lifts me in forgiveness. I am loved. He strengthens what remains (Revelation 3:2). He fills the empty and wanting places with His Spirit. Healing comes and progress is made by His holy hands. Thank you Jesus. Come close. Come back soon. Heal our land. And in the meantime, keep me strong, keep me loyal, keep me humble, keep me close. Use me to draw others close to You. “Be alert and strengthen what remains which is about to die, for I have not found your works complete before my God.” (Revelation 3:2). “…You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God.” (Psalm 51:17b). Selah. Maranatha. Amen.
The reminder that all is is really against God. Lord, forgive me!
The passage in Revelation 2 verse 5 stands out to me. Remember how far you’ve fallen. How humbling, it can unfortunately be easy to feel superior at times, but we must remember how far we’ve fallen to keep from being prideful.
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Repentance is demonstrated in big groups of people and alone. We call each other to repent that God may sanctify us further. it is not to condemn, or annoy, but out of Love for God and another’s spiritual well-being that we call each other to repent.
Repentance is coming humbly before God, admitting our lowly sinful state – confessing our sin and then turning from it, to Him – the only One who can cleanse and heal our brokenness. I love the prayer of David in Psalm 51:10-17, Create in me a clean heart, renew a steadfast spirit, restore to me the joy of my salvation, grant me a willing spirit. The action on our part is coming to God in confession, He does all the rest.
Rejoicing today that God’s mercy is everlasting – Great is Thy faithfulness!
God- Forgive me!!Give me a clean ♥️.
God is ever faithful. I love the Psalm 51: 1-6 reading. He teaches wisdom, He gives faithful love and abundant compassion. He can cleanse me from my sin. Thank you Lord! Walk with me today and always!
Just to be aware enough that the things we may say, do, or think are not aligned with God is such a gift of His mercy. We, through the strength of Holy Spirit, are able to confess and turn back to God to restore our relationship with Him.
DOROTHY – sorry for Danaie’s loss.
The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart God.
I feel like this is still very true today. We no longer provide sacrifices because Jesus came and was the ultimate sacrifice. I feel as though sometimes God needs a broken and humbled heart so he can meld it into how it should be and so we can become more like him and less like the world.
Sorry, to carry on yesterday’s Called to prayer..
So many prayer requests.. praying dear sisters.. know that I am praying and lifting your requests to the One who already knows, sees, hears.. hold fast to Him, even when you believe He is not listening or not paying attention, He is and He is making a way for you to see His goodness, grace, mercy and most most importantly How much He loves you and is in the midst of your worries troubles and woes.
BUT GOD..
He is near dear hearts, He is near..
Holding you all close in my prayers today..❤
The fate of our country has been on my mind lately, and I know many more have had these same thoughts. I wish that our leaders would put God first. I loved the section of our reading Daniel 9:17-19. It’s such the perfect prayer for our country. Forgive us, Lord. We know our sins and come to you to repent. Not because of our righteousness, but because of His grace and mercy.