A Sears Marketing Approach and the Christian Walk

    Sears stores use a technique which gently move you to the higher end products.  They will grade some of the appliances as “Good” which are lower-middle of the line, “Better” which move up in features and cost, and “Best” which are the “top-of-the-line”.    One could apply these categories to the response in Ezra 10.  
    It says that a large number of the people “wept bitterly” over their sin.  This is “Good”.  Biblical repentance must start with a sorrow or true broken heartedness over our sin.  They confessed the sin of marrying unbelieving (not Jewish) women.  They repented and the action of the repentance was to “divorce” or put away the foreign wives and their children.  The is the “Better”.  Reformation from sinful actions is always better, and in Christ, we can do it.  But the “Best”, the “top-of-the-line” of Christian living is obedience!  To have obeyed God in the first place, would have avoided all of the pain, sorrow and hardships that their sin produced.  So, which have you chosen?  The “good” - weeping over your sins?  The “better” - reform, turning from your sins?  Or the “best” - obedience in the first place (which we can choose in Christ)?  
Taken from "A Picture of Biblical Repentance", June, 17, 2007.