Repentance is one of those big, scary, Christian buzz words that make a lot of people in this day and age cringe. It used to remind me of this scary street preacher I would see in Philadelphia on my way to art class. He was wearing a big sign emblazoned with words of doom for all who read it unless they would drop what they were doing and REPENT! The truth of the matter is, however, that repentance is necessary in life, despite how counter cultural it is to think that some things we do can be objectively wrong. And even with it’s theological, and therefore distasteful connotation among the irreligious in this world, repentance is not a foreign concept to humanity. It’s something we do every time we realize we have wronged someone and genuinely, with all our hearts, tell the offended party that we’re truly sorry and want to make things right.
What Repentance Is and What it Is Not
Look at the last sentence in the introductory paragraph. If you follow the thought you should get some sense of movement: A person does something bad, realizes he or she was mistaken, apologizes, and seeks forgiveness. This is what repentance is. It’s a turning. It’s an acknowledgement of what is wrong and a course correction back toward what is right. This definitely involves some sort of remorse, but it may or may not be accompanied by an emotional reaction. It doesn’t have to be, and we shouldn’t get hung up on whether or not our repentance was tearful enough. This is something that I have struggled with. Repentance is not how much drama you put into the display to show your sincerity. Tears don’t make repentance genuine. What’s going on inside your heart is what makes it genuine and only you can know that…
…Well, only you and God can know that. Even though we’re all familiar with repenting, the term is not often used outside of a religious context. So let’s go to where it feels more natural to talk about it, and also the most important part of this blog post.
Why We Need Repentance
The Bible teaches that mankind is born with a sin nature. We’re stuck in the “something’s amiss and we need forgiveness” stage from the get-go. Despite what a lot of people think about perfect babies, we don’t come out of the womb on good terms with God (Psalm 51:5; 58:3). Rather, we are at enmity with Him, separated from Him, because of the sin of disobedience committed by our great great great great (times a very large number) grandfather, Adam, whose curse and associated penalty passed on to all generations (Rom. 5:12-20). For more on this, see my blog post on the destiny of mankind.
It is our natural tendency, then, to do bad things. As little children, sometimes it’s a cute offense, though it’s an offense all the same. The little toddler escapes out of the crib even though Mom said it’s nap time, or lies about that cookie he or she sneaked before supper. As the child grows, the offenses aren’t so cute any more. Adults who do wrong things sometimes end up in jail or are faced with severe fines. All of this wrongdoing is called sin. There are many sins that are not punishable under the laws of the United States or other countries, but are still sins before God all the same.1 This is because there is an objective, top-down, hard line demarcation of what is right and what is wrong that has been set by God, and there is no blurring of the lines or gray area when it comes to what He has said is so. Adam and Eve crossed the line, I have crossed the line, and God knows you will too if you haven’t done so already (unlikely). And even if you or I were really, really good people who couldn’t think of a single instance where we did anything wrong, even in our childhood or adolescence, we would still not be good enough to stand blameless before God, because we were born in sin (Isa. 64:6; Rom. 3:10-12; 3:23).
We need to acknowledge that we are sinners, even if we think we are good citizens who are following the laws of our nation, respecting others, being kind and generous, telling the truth on our tax forms, etc. We need to repent of sin, which means we need to make a conscious decision to turn away from it and toward God. There are churches out there that preach “just trust in Jesus” or “say a prayer telling Jesus you want Him to be a part of your life and you will be saved,” without mentioning anything about acknowledging and turning from sin. Recognizing that we are sinners, however, is vital. Why do we need Jesus in our lives if there is no sin that separates us from God the Father? The truth is that there certainly is sin in our lives that separates us from God the Father, and we need redemption. Otherwise we’ll spend eternity separated from God in Hell.
Our Only Hope is Jesus
Only Jesus the Christ was perfect and sinless, because He was God in flesh. I made a statement above concerning the possibility of looking back on our past and seeing no sin, but this is entirely impossible. We all sin. Only Jesus did not. God loved us so much and had compassion on us in our inability to get to heaven, and so He came down to earth in human form to pay the penalty for our sins (John 3:16; Rom. 6:23). He died on a cruel Roman cross, not because He was overpowered by mankind and its laws, but because He chose to lay down His life for you and me. This is the message of Christmas and Easter. Jesus, God in flesh, came as a humble baby, lived a sinless life serving others, was crucified by sinful man, and rose from the dead three days later to show us that we would be rescued (saved) in like manner if we turn from our sins and put our faith in Him.
Friend, acknowledge that you are a sinner. Repent of it and ask Jesus Christ to save you. He promised that he will save all who call upon His name (Rom. 10:9-13). And when He saves you, you become like a new creation, “born again” with the Holy Spirit of God inside of you (2 Cor. 5:17). Don’t delay, because after your physical life is over, it’s too late. Also, please note that just because you are saved doesn’t mean you’ll never mess up and sin again, though you should try not to and the Holy Spirit won’t leave you alone about any offense until you confess it! We’re still imperfect while we’re on this earth, but Jesus paid for all of your sins, past, present, and future. God only requires that you place your faith and trust in Him.
Merry Christmas! I hope you allowed Jesus to change you and add new meaning to this season for you! If so, why not drop me a note in the comments section below? I’d love to hear from you. I would also encourage you to get together regularly with a local group of like minded Christians (church) to worship God and grow to maturity in your faith.
1 An excellent list of sins with Bible references, although I don’t think it is organized very well, can be found here. (I have not reviewed the other parts of the site, so I can’t endorse its contents.)