repentance

Papua New Guinea Observes National Repentance Day

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9/5/2025 Papua New Guinea (International Christian Concern) — Every August since 2007, Papua New Guinea has observed a national holiday called the National Repentance Day.

The purpose of the day is to encourage citizens to remember Papua New Guinea’s Christian heritage and focus on the repentance of sins for the more than 14 million people living on hundreds of islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Christian leaders from numerous denominations urge, especially within the government, honesty, stronger ethics, morals, and values, and more courage to confront corruption and violence in their nation.

In March, Papua New Guinea passed a constitutional amendment declaring itself a Christian nation. As it seeks to live up to the way of Christ, it also has high rates of corruption, bribery, crime, and gender-based violence. Additionally, there are frequent cases of tribal and village-based violence, which affects locals, Christians, and missionaries, particularly in rural and highland areas.

In West Papua, now an Indonesian territory, there is an intensifying Islamification of traditionally Christian areas and ongoing persecution of believers.

Amid its current challenges, National Repentance Day provides Papua New Guinea with a unique opportunity for renewed spiritual focus. The hope is that the nation will move closer to Christ and, over time, better represent God’s kingdom.

“Repentance is a way of life, acknowledging God as the source of our life, our country, and our very existence,” Dr. Jack Urame, head of the Lutheran Evangelical Church in Papua New Guinea, said during the recent National Repentance Day. “Yet, the way we live as a nation does not reflect that we have truly repented or changed our way of life.”

Read more here

Crocodile Tears Over Burning Building

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This morning the news was all about the fire at Paris’s Notre-Dame Cathedral. Journalists and the various “experts” they talked to were in shock over this great cultural loss.

I say to them:

Woe to you hypocrites who mourn the loss of a place of faith but you spent the last decades defaming and hating the people of faith. You care about a Catholic cathedral, but loathe the Church the building represents.

Woe to you hypocrites who weep over a burning church that was empty but ignore the daily burning of christians inside their places of worship.

Woe to you hypocrites who marvel at the faith and vision of christians half a millennium ago to build a place of worship, but condemn those of faith and vision today who speak words you do not want to hear.

Woe to you hypocrites who wail at the loss of material objects which you can see but ignore your own souls which you cannot see.

Woe to you who live only for your own pleasure.

Your salvation is in Jesus Christ alone who forgives our sins and rescues sinners from the fires of hell.

Jon Bloom: Leave Your Secret Sin Behind Today

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Jon Bloom from Desiring God Ministries warns all christians, but especially leaders that we are in a time of judgement and it is time to leave our sins behind.

Today is a day of reckoning. A wave of judgment is sweeping leaders from their high positions of cultural, political, corporate, and religious power because they used those positions to indulge their self-centered sexual appetites on subordinates.

Things that in the dim, hidden realms of their imagination and control looked deceptively like perks of privilege and sexual entertainment — pleasures they pursued without giving serious thought to how the human objects they used would be damaged — now look lurid, foul, abusive, pathetic, and shameful when dragged out into the bright light of public exposure.

Victims are speaking out, many for the first time. Their anger is justified and palpable, and their words are carrying real consequences to their once-insulated abusers. So far this has been a very good thing. It would be a great mercy if lasting cultural intolerance resulted in the balance of power changing between lecherous leaders and vulnerable subordinates.

Is Your Heart Being Hardened?

But God is doing far more than exposing the sin of leaders. He is showing again how deceitful and desperately sick the human heart is (Jeremiah 17:9) apart from Christ, and reminding us that we have such evil blood still coursing in our veins, so prone to be “hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13).

And for those who will hear it, God is offering us total forgiveness and freedom. He has sent his Son into the world precisely to liberate us from our sick hearts and sin’s slavery, no matter how lurid and shameful. There is an escape; there is a safe place.

But the time is urgent and short. God can turn a day of reckoning into a day of amnesty. But he’s calling today, “Today, if [we] hear his voice, [let us not] harden [our] hearts” (Hebrews 3:15).

Read the full article here

 

Sorry, The Impossible Word For Many

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All too often we see fake apologies in the media given by celebrities as a part of their branding efforts.

The cause is often that the person involved has been caught out saying or doing something that some people find offensive.

For example celebrity non-entity Red Foo was chastised for appearing in a song that is pretty well offensive to every human being on the planet. So he “apologised” to his fans (not to women who might have felt demeaned or genuinely outraged by his song). The apology was meant to sidestep an angry petition demanding his removal from X-Factor. It was not a recognition that the song portrays women as just objects of sexual gratification, but an attempt to placate fans and keep the money rolling in.

Football players who misbehave while drunk often get to read a fake apology usually to stop the sponsors from withdrawing their support.

I guess all of us try this on with God too- a form of words that we hope diverts wrath but with no real intention of changing behaviour.

So what does a “fake” sorry look like and how is it different to a real sorry?

A fake sorry is big on the word “if, but a real sorry is unconditional. “I am sorry IF my actions offended anyone” is not real sorrow at all. A real sorry recognises that serious hurt has been caused and unconditionally apologises.

A fake sorry is all words (usually written by someone else!), but a real sorry leads to a change of heart and actions. Sometimes we say stupid things or do things without thinking how they affect others. Real repentance means we have learned something and we will not want to do it again.

A fake sorry leaves people apart, but a real sorry draws people together. Saying “sorry” is not about  making me look better than I really am, but about genuinely wanting to repair a relationship. After saying the words, we will want to ask “How can I make this better?”

If you hurt someone,”sorry” is the starting point not the ending point.

That’s why christians are so big on repentance as the start of the journey with God. we have all sinned and we all need to be put right with God. The place to start is saying “sorry” to God and then living a life of walking in friendship with Him (that is, a life of obedience to His ways.)

When we do the fake apology with God, and try to impress Him with our spirituality, that is called religion. God describes those things as filthy rags, or in Paul’s words “a pile of crap.”

Yes “sorry” is a hard word for many to say. But a genuine repentance can open the doors to healthy relationships with people and with God.