Matt Maher Calls for Repentance This Lent: ‘Turn Around’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Christian musician Matt Maher is calling for people to repent and believe the Gospel as he shares his thoughts on Lent.
“So my hope for you, as we journey through Lent, it’s also a time where we reflect on our mortality a bit, right? There’s that phrase that used to be: Dust you are and unto dust you shall return,” Maher began. “And now it’s repent and believe in the Gospel, which is really what the call of the season of Lent is.”
“It is a season of repentance,” he continued, describing Lent. “It is a season of asking the Holy Spirit, where are the areas in our lives that we simply need to turn around? Because the word repentance really comes from that word ‘metanoia,’ which means you got to do a 180 on how you’ve been looking at the world. It’s that the power of God gets inside you and changes and shifts your perspective, turns it completely around.”
In a separate reflection, Maher explained why repentance is important even after someone has decided to follow Jesus.
“You’re on a youth group retreat, or you’re a college student, and you’re at a conference, and someone’s like, ‘You got to repent!’ And it like, grabs you, you know,” Maher shared. “And then it’s almost like a word that once you’ve heard it that time, you kind of fall really easily into the temptation of just sort of going, ‘That doesn’t apply to me anymore.'”
“Like I can tell you how many times I’ve been at a conference being a worship leader, and I’m watching this guy on stage and he’s saying, ‘Does anyone here need to repent,'” he continued. “And I’m looking out into the crowd and what would it look like, instead of looking around, we just looked in and said, ‘Today, if the Kingdom is at hand’–meaning it’s literally within my grasp–’What do I need to repent of?'”
Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
To become a Christian, we must repent of our sins and then choose to follow Jesus. However, just because we make that decision doesn’t mean we will never sin again. While further repentance or lack thereof doesn’t impact our salvation, it demonstrates our reliance and need for God every day.
Maher is getting ready for his “Live and In the Room” tour.
“I’m going out with @lizzie_viv and @seph_schlueter this Spring. We’re hitting some incredible cities across the nation this April and May and would love for you to join us,” he posted.
Movieguide® previously reported on Maher:
Worship artist Matt Maher recently released his new song, The In Between, which he wrote about one of the first episodes of THE CHOSEN.
Now, with the launch of Season 3 of THE CHOSEN, Maher’s song appears in the show, created by Dallas Jenkins.
“In the process of connecting with Dallas, I basically shared with him a song I had recently written with another artist in town that was inspired by a scene in the second episode of the first season of the show,” Maher told Movieguide®’s Cheryl Crisp in a recent interview. “I sent the song to Dallas and didn’t realize that it was actually the first scene that they ever wrote for the show. So the song meant a lot to him. It connected a ton with the staff, and the production team, other members of the creative team with the show, and we just sort of kept dialoguing about it.”
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