I’m home from the Advance conference. It was truly outstanding. I hope to eventually blog about some of the nuggets I picked up, but tonight I’m too tired, plus, I’m still processing a lot of it. It was like trying to drink out of a fire hose. All the speakers did a fantastic job. It was especially good to get to share the experience with Tim Bredamus and Jason Dove. The conversation on the car ride home was almost as good as the conference itself.

While the primary theme of the conference was devoted to the resurgence of the local church to the glory of God, it seemed as if each of the speakers felt led to focus on the importance of repentance. In fact, at the closing Q&A, the moderator mentioned how interesting it was that humility and repentance ended up being such a recurring theme in almost all of the messages even though none of the speakers were specifically asked to tackle that subject.

God obviously wanted it emphasized. It was and it was powerful.

While catching up on some of the blogs I follow, I ran across this quote by Spurgeon. What a terrific way to close out an equally terrific conference:

Remember that the man who truly repents is never satisfied with his own repentance. We can no more repent perfectly than we can live perfectly. However pure our tears, there will always be some dirt in them; there will be something to tbe repented of even in our best repentance. But listen! To repent is to change our mind about sin, and Christ, and all the great things of God. There is sorrow implied in this; but the main point is the turning of the heart from sin to Christ. If there be this turning, you have the essence of true repentance, even though no alarm and no despair should ever cast their shadow upon your mind.
C. H. Spurgeon, All of Grace, page 70
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