What is Repentance?
Acts 3:19 “Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away.”
Repentance is a beautiful thing. Repentance is a change of mind that leads to a change of direction. Repentance is a change of mind about Christ and about sin that leads to a change of action. Our lifestyle transforms. Repentance is not, I’m going to stop doing this stuff and that’s it. In repentance you’re not left empty-handed. Repentance is, I’m dropping all that is in my hand to grasp a hold of something better. I want to grasp a hold of Christ. In Him I have something far more precious.
Repentance is the result of seeing the beauty of God and His goodness and being so consumed with it that everything that you’re holding onto looks like trash in comparison to Him. The good news of the gospel is that you get to repent of sin without shame because Christ gave His life for you and resurrected. He is the one that says you are covered.
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” C.S. Lewis
When we are repentant, we see sin like we’ve never seen it before. We begin to hate it. We begin to see how it leaves us broken. We see what Christ has done on the cross for us. We change directions from that sin to the direction of Christ. That is biblical repentance.
It may not always be perfect, but the heart will have a new relationship with sin. Sin will begin to bother you and break your heart. The things that didn’t use to bother you before will bother you now.
Luke 3:8 “Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don’t just say to each other, We’re safe, for we are descendants of Abraham. That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones.”
Acts 26:20 “First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.”
2 Corinthians 7:10 “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”
To repent is to:
Admit your sinfulness
Regret
Change one’s mind
A change of attitude towards God’s truth.
Change of heart
It is a change of direction and ways.
Turn from your sins
Hatred for sin and the things that God hates and a love for the things that God loves.
There is a lot of confusion when discussing repentance. However, allow me to clarify a few things regarding repentance. Repentance is not a work we do to earn salvation. 2 Timothy 2:25 teaches us that it is God who grants us repentance. Repentance is a work of God.
As stated above, Repentance is a change of mind about Christ, which will lead to a lifestyle change. Repentance is not what saves us. Trusting in the perfect work of Christ is what saves us. However, without first having a change of mind (repentance), people will not place their faith in Christ for salvation.
Biblical repentance should lead to a growing hatred for sin. This does not mean that a believer won’t struggle with sin. The statement is true that “no one is perfect.” However, a true repentant heart will not live a continuous lifestyle of sin. Evidence of salvation is that a person will be a new creature with new desires and affections for Christ and His Word. There will be a change in that person’s lifestyle. Paul taught that man is saved by faith apart from works (Romans 3:28). However, this leads to the question, does it matter if a Christian lives a lifestyle of sin and rebellion? Paul gives a response to this question in Romans 6:1-2 “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” Believers have died to sin. Paul then goes on to use baptism as an illustration of our spiritual reality.
Romans 6:4 “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”
We were buried with Christ and raised from the dead in newness of life. Dwell upon this thought for a second. It’s impossible for a person to be risen from the dead and not have their entire life changed.
A genuine believer will not desire to trample on the grace of God because He has been supernaturally changed by God and has been given new desires. If someone is claiming to be Christian, but sin doesn’t bother them and they boldly proclaim, “I’ll just sin now and repent later, I’m a sinner anyway,” is this evidence of a changed heart or an unregenerate heart (A heart that has not been radically changed by God)? A repentant heart has been so moved by the grace of God, and it has been so captivated by the beauty of the Lord, that it wants to live a life pleasing to Him. Once again, it is not because obedience somehow saves me, but because He has already saved me! Jesus alone is enough to live a life of obedience.
Be honest
Now that we learned what repentance is, allow me to give you some helpful advice. I encourage you to repent daily. Let’s be professional repenters. Be intimate with the Lord and be specific when asking for forgiveness. Also, I encourage you to consider this.
Is there any sin that is stopping you from trusting in Christ? Is there anything that is holding you back? Is there something that you find more precious than Jesus? Jesus died so that you could be set free from sin. I encourage you to examine yourself and be honest.
Whether it be sexual immorality, pornography, greed, drunkenness, drugs, pride, lying, cursing, anger, gossip, stealing, hatred, idolatry, etc. Is there anything that you love more than Christ that has a hold on your life? The blood of Christ is strong enough to break every chain!
Get alone with God and be honest with Him about your struggles. This is a way of being totally reliant upon God. Ask for forgiveness and pray for a change of mind. Say, “Lord I don’t want these things. Help me. I need You. Change my desires. Change my passions.” Pray for help with these things. Pray for strength from the Spirit. Pray for help with dying to self. For those of you who struggle with sin such as myself, I encourage you to cling to Christ.
In resting in Christ there is victory!
Romans 7:24-25 “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.”
Excerpt from article published in Bible Reasons
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