Repentance is a tricky word. These days ministers are using it for leverage to put distance between themselves and their ministerial missteps. An article by Michael Youssef posted in Charisma Magazine bears this out yet again, as he stated that “the Western church has adulterated the Gospel”, and in his prayer added his own repentance.

Repentance is not a sudden cough that sneaks up on you, and you just can’t help but belch it out. Repentance is a clearly laid out path that God points out through apostolic stewardship for you to walk in Christ, in a new way. You need knowledge in order for your repentance to be sealed by God, and it is the knowledge steward and terms of the covenant that ministers today just can’t swallow.

As God transitions the church back to the new covenant we will hear many ministers repenting. God addresses this phenomena in my new book, “The Apostolic Calling & Anointing” . In chapter One, Crisis of Faith: A Broken Church Crying Out To God, the Lord speaks to the habit of ministers to self diagnose. The following is a quote from page 8.

As God raised up one apostolic steward to lead His people back to the new covenant to restore to the church all that she had lost, ministers who are part of the hydra (many headed and diverse leadership) objected to God’s will to select and begin anew with one man (as He did with Abraham, Moses, and David).

Many do not have a heart for God and therefore fight against God’s plan to transition the church back to the new covenant for which Jesus shed His blood. These ministers want permission to continue to muddle on, trying to do things differently. They argue that the needs of the church were too many and too diverse for God to heal and address through one steward.

In reality, they wanted to each have a part to play. They wanted a hand in reforming practices that they were still very much a part of. This self diagnosis and promise of rehabilitation is like permitting a drug addict to cure himself, who, as we all know, is prone to repeat the self-destructive behavior that keeps him looped to his addiction. The addict is asking himself, What could I have done differently?

Sadly, the addict’s vulnerability was exploited. But it doesn’t stop there, as he in turn becomes the exploiter, seeking out those who would support his habit. Family, friends, people he meets on the street—as they allow themselves to be manipulated, they become his enabler.

As God confronts this same error of thinking in ministers, He has highlighted how each spiritual practice developed by the false religious system is earmarked with the clear signs of spiritual exploitation, and promises of rehabilitation are simply avenues to continue to enable faith exploitation.

To be sure, every minister would want to see that for what it is and then put it away and claim a clean bill of health saying, “I’m clean now”. The problem is that a minister who is involved with spiritual exploitation can’t see it. It’s like a piece of toilet paper stuck on the bottom of his shoe. He can’t see what’s trailing behind him any more than he can see the crisis of faith he leaves in his wake. [end quote]

Let’s skip over to chapter three, “Are You a Judas?”. Here we get the mind of God further about the habit of ministers to misuse repentance. We’ll read on how God is laying bare the errors of the false religious system. The following is a quote from page 66.

In chapter one we said that while God raised up one apostolic steward to lead His people back to the new covenant, ministers who are part of the hydra (many headed and diverse leadership) want to do a two-step around God’s commandment. They want to self diagnose to rehabilitate themselves, and in that way retain the authority God is asking them to relinquish.

We also learned that as ministers are self diagnosing they are using confession as a point of authority, so I want to carry on with that theme to further hit home the points the Holy Spirit is making.

As God reveals to each minister His commandment, that they are to come into one house to accept the steward of His choosing, God packages His revelation with words of rebuke that the minister cannot deny, and under normal circumstances would not openly and publicly confess. Yet many are doing just that, they’re confessing ministry missteps, admitting that they have missed God and misled believers. What is the compulsion to share these ministerial failings? Why do it? What is the motivation behind it?

The answer is simple. Each minister experiences a tremendous moment of clarity when grace is present, mistaking this clarity for authority, and therefore uses the revelation as a confirmation and proof that God will further empower him and direct him to make needful course corrections.

In their head the math is simple: God shows me my mistakes. God will add to that correction specific knowledge to show me how to change my ways, and I can then show others the way. Sadly, this math has not been adding up. First of all, the clarity of grace is misleading for them. They believe that God’s rebuke is a sign of His active involvement in their ministry; hence, His stamp of approval.

This is a good example of their lack of understanding the grace of God in its simplest terms. Not knowing the three different manifestations of grace, they’ve mistaken the grace that God gives for salvation for the grace God gives for calling. [end quote]

Youssef stated that the Western Gospel is adulterated, but in reality the adulterated gospel is a global gospel—it’s all over the world—it’s the false religious system—it’s a saltless gospel. The revivalists of the 1950’s were pushing this gospel around the world. They promised healing and resolution, but not faith in covenant.

The way that Youssef advocates for repentance is like buying a ticket on a train with no destination. What is he repenting to? He is still resisting the stewardship, still resisting the covenant, and still resisting the priesthood, and so God is challenging his feigned repentance.

His repentance is without wisdom so he isn’t a credible voice for the church. When ministers repent it is a first step, but it’s only an open confession of something they don’t really cannot comprehend or grasp. That’s what happened when the Scribes and Pharisees went to see John the Baptist. They were responding to the power of God, but did not bring forth the fruits of repentance, and as Jesus’ ministry progressed they constantly protested the knowledge He was giving and the direction He was giving for the transition of the covenant from Moses to Himself.

This is what is happening with charismatic ministers. A great number of them are  realizing something; they’re realizing how far they drifted from the original gospel, but they are frozen, they can’t take the next step, and are using repentance as a spiritual “do-over”.  I’ll cover this in another article.