The Call to Repentance

Jesus came to make a very important personal call to you and I (Matthew 9:11-13):

11 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? 12 But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. 13 But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

His call to each of us also included a warning (Luke 13:3):

I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

He desires that each of us heed his call (1 Timothy 2:3-6):

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our SaviourWho will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ JesusWho gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

Paul explains in his letter to the church in Phillippi, Philippians 2:5-8, that this ransom was the death of Christ Jesus, the son of God, on the cross:

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ JesusWho, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of menAnd being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Our answer to this call is life changing (Galatians 2:20) 

20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.