Have You Really Repented?

by Russell Young

Have you repented? Do you repent when convicted of sin? Christ taught, “Unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Lk 13: 3, 5) Repentance results from feeling sorrow, regret, or contrition for the injury done to God and should be accompanied by the believer’s intent not to repeat the wrong.

Voicing sorrow without feeling its presence is not repentance. Unfortunately, many are invited to “accept” Christ without ever appreciating the holiness of God or the fact that they have done anything to offend him. Their response to the evangelist is often based on the promise given that upon compliance to his or her call those responding will be assured of an eternal hope. Consequently, the hope is accepted without any contrition or recognition of personal unrighteousness.

God always requires repentance for the forgiveness of sins and the provision of an eternal hope. Acknowledgement is needed since without it the confessor remains in his or her own pride and wilfulness and lacks awareness to change ungodly practices. It is a mistake to think that God will overlook unrighteousness and those who teach such will one day be accountable to their holy Creator and God.

Paul wrote, “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.” (2 Cor 7:10─11) Has your sorrow brought alarm or concern? Are you eager to clear yourself? Are you earnest about righteous living? Godly sorrow and repentance produce the heart attitude that engenders the repentance that leads to salvation. Have you ever repented for the pain that you have brought to the heart of God (Gen 6: 6)? Do you repent when evil has once more grabbed your attention or has invaded your heart?

The holiness and sovereignty of God must never be forgotten. Failure to repent of acts that are hurtful to him displays blatant disregard for his being and majesty. The haughty and prideful attitude that rejects repentance will not be passed over. Many times the Israelites were commanded to repent of their evil ways and often times they were enslaved because of their failure to walk humbly before their God. The LORD’s chastisement through withholding blessings was frequently experienced because his chosen people had failed to acknowledge his authority through disobedience to his laws, decrees and regulations. When truth dawned, it was often followed by repentance as revealed through the wearing of sackcloth and covering with ashes, followed by prostration before their sovereign God.

Repentance was never intended to be a one-time event. The Lord admonished his Jewish listeners to “produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (Mt 3:8; Lk 3:8 Italics added) and Paul described his ministry in the same manner. “I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.” (Acts 26:20 Italics added) His portrayal of what he was about seems quite different from that which is often attributed to him.

Failure to repent of on-going sin is arrogance and disregard for God’s holiness. The Lord condemned the church in Sardis as having “a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.” He told them to “Remember what they have received and heard; obey it, and repent.” (Rev 3:1, 3) He condemned the church of Laodicea for its lukewarmness and commanded them to be earnest and repent. (Rev 3:19) He also commanded his disciples to wash one another’s feet—to cleanse them of the day’s sins—so that they may have a part with him. (Jn 13:8) John wrote, “If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life.” (1 Jn 5:16) And, John wrote “If we confess our sins, he is just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 Jn 1:9)

Repentance leads to restoration and when the need to repent is realized by many it may even lead to spiritual revival. God is sovereign and will punish those who disregard his holiness. Speaking through Isaiah the LORD said, “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.” (Isa 66:2) Unfortunately, current presentations of God’s grace and mercy have brought God to the familial human level and have engendered the absence of sorrow, regret, or contrition for acts that are offensive to our holy and sovereign God.

Teaching about the need for repentance seems to be disappearing with the result that the hope of many will prove false. Repentance encourages the discontinuation of offensive practices and the conformation of believers to the likeness of Christ, which would make them an offering acceptable to God. (Rom 15:16) The Lord’s teaching should be taken to heart: “The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.” (Mt 13:41) In the end, all people will be subject to the judgment of the sovereign and holy God for the things done in the body, whether good or bad. (2 Cor 5:10)

Repentance should be the response of a convicted heart, a heart that appreciates the nature of God and his place as sovereign of his creation, including humankind. It acknowledges hurt done to the One who is establishing his eternal kingdom and it recognizes the need for personal righteousness as accomplished through obedience (Heb 5:9) to their loving Savior and Lord. It comes from a humble and contrite spirit.

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Russell Young’s column appears here on alternate Tuesdays. His book, Eternal Salvation: “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” Really? is available in print and eBook in the U.S. through Westbow Publishing, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble; in Canada through Chapters/Indigo. To read all of Russell’s contributions here at C201, click this link.  There is also a feature-length article at this link.

When Sorrow is Godly Sorrow

Sometimes I find some great writing online that was written in the passion of dealing with a particular issue that is taking place in a particular location at a particular time. While the content is worth sharing here, the entire article may not be relevant when it is sourced later on. For that reason, I am editing this piece by Wendy Alsup (while I appreciated the whole thing) to extract what I think is great teaching that will continue to be useful to people for months and years to come.   She describes her ministry:

My family and I have experienced the impact of having been shunned by our church family. This blog is intended to be a forum for processing, healing, and calling for Christians to understand the harm done to people through the harsh practice of shunning. It is also a forum to understand how to pursue justice and mercy in dealing with those who are victims of shunning, or those who have been the perpetrators of shunning.

Check out her blog, Musings from Under the Bus.

Bonhoeffer writes in his Cost of Discipleship:

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”

[The Apostle Paul defines the difference:]

For godly sorrow produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly sorrow produces death. — 2 Corinthians 7:10

When it comes to our personal responses to our own sin, these are the only two options. When faced with confrontation or other natural consequences of your sin, you can mourn your sin in a way that leads you to confess to God, change your direction, and repair with those you have hurt. And that response allows you to get up and go forward without regret. I’ve never once in my life met someone who REGRETTED bringing their sin into the light, confessing it honestly, and repairing with those they had wronged. Godly sorrow producing repentance is beautiful.

The second option when faced with painful consequences of your sin is worldly sorrow, grief and lament in response to the consequences of one’s sin that does not understand and appropriate Christ’s payment for it. [A person] can (over)use Jesus’ name in proper context who does not appropriate how the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection speaks into the consequences of sin he is now facing … Such people often want forgiveness. They want grace extended to them. And, in Christ, there is no condemnation according to Romans 8:1! Yet, the same Paul who wrote Romans 8:1 instructs us in Ephesians 5 to bring our sin into the light, because the light of Christ is a disinfectant. Expose the sin. Own the sin. Not to bring shame and condemnation but to bring restoration and healing! Any hope of “forgiveness” without clear, specific repentance is exactly what Bonhoeffer labels cheap grace. It’s continuing in sin that grace may abound, to which Paul says, “God forbid!”

The indication for any one of us of godly verses worldly sorrow is summed up in one word – repentance. True repentance always starts with a specific naming of your sin, and it always includes a change in your ways. I love the definition of the Greek word for repent according to Strong – “to change one’s mind for better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one’s past sins.” Godly sorrow that produces repentance will include statements along these lines – “I sinned against God and (name redacted). I have asked their forgiveness and am seeking to repair with them in the ways that I can. I am taking these steps to guard myself from doing the same in the future.” It always comes with a hearty desire to amend your ways with an abhorrence for how you sinned against God and others in the past.

I am writing this post because it is of utmost importance that people (believing and unbelieving) hearing Jesus’ name understand the difference in worldly and godly sorrow.

Long before…I wrote about godly versus worldly sorrow in The Gospel-Centered Woman. I felt that many women, myself included, often linger in this sorrowful place over our sin without understanding how repentance in the shadow of the cross heals and repairs. I’ll close with these thoughts from the book.

Worldly sorrow is characterized by feelings of shame, pain, or embarrassment that you got caught in sin. Along with that shame, you may feel hopelessness over ever being cleansed from your sin or your ability to repair the relationship with the person you sinned against. Such worldly sorrow may be relieved by someone else doing something for you or you doing something for yourself. Maybe you seek out someone to affirm you or distract you. You may try to manipulate how others think of you and look to them to make you feel better about yourself. If one relationship is broken, you may manipulate other relationships to replace the one you harmed.

In contrast, godly sorrow is sorrow that directs you to Christ. You do not need someone else to do something for you. You do not need to do something for yourself. Instead, you fall flat on your face before God alone, for godly sorrow points you directly to Him. Godly sorrow is relieved by repentance and faith in what Christ has already done for you. Then, resting in what God has done for you, you can lay down your attempts to justify yourself to others. You can simply ask their forgiveness and repair with those you have hurt.

Many of us spend years of our lives mistaking worldly sorrow on a wide range of sin issues for authentic repentance and then wonder why we never change or why our relationships never heal. Feeling bad about what you have done is not the same as a godly sorrow that leads to repentance. God calls us to recognize our wrongdoing and need for forgiveness and then turn to God to forgive and correct it. We do not have to live in a perpetual state of regret and shame. Christ bore our shame and condemnation on the cross. His sacrifice for us equips us to face our sin head-on without fear that it will forever define us.

For the full article at source, link here.

What Genuine Repentance Looks Like

Ryan Huguley is the founding and lead pastor of Redemption Bible Church in Mount Prospect, Illinois. Click the title to read this at source, you’ll find a number of good articles, including a recently-completed series on doing family devotions.

3 Essential Marks of Genuine Repentance

To hear the entire message, click here.

We’ve all experienced times of confusion – times when we thought we understood something we in reality did not. The problem with confusion is that it has consequences. Some confusion, in fact, can have life-long, fatal, even eternal consequences. Repentance is one of those issues.

From beginning to end, the Bible heralds genuine repentance as foundational to both salvation and spiritual growth. The truth is, there is no salvation or spiritual growth apart from repentance.

But even though it’s one of the most talked-about issues in our faith, repentance is also one of the most misunderstood. As a result, much of what we deem repentance may not be. So, we need to be crystal clear about what it is and what it isn’t.

Here’s the question: How certain are you that you both understand and practice Biblical repentance? 

Two words are used for “repentance” in both the Old and the New Testaments. When translated, these words describe a three-fold change that Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 7: 11.

“For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter.”

From this passage, we can see three essential marks of genuine repentance. Without all three of these, we have not genuinely repented:

1. A Change of Mind – I think differently about my sin.

“For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you…”

Repentance starts with seeing our sin for what it is: an offense against the heart of God, treason against the King we were created to serve, rebellion against a perfect, heavenly Father. Until we think the way God thinks about our sin, we won’t feel the way God feels about it. No matter how small we think our sin is, it is never insignificant.

2. A Change of Heart – I feel differently toward my sin.

“What indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment!”

Godly grief produced strong emotions in the Christians at Corinth. Their hearts were broken and they hated their sin. Genuine repentance will result in sorrow and heartbroken remorse over the hurt we’ve caused God as a result of our sin.

3. A Change of Direction – I act differently in regard to my sin.

“What eagerness to clear yourselves . . .”

When they repented, the Corinthians committed to making restitution. Unlike gift giving, when it comes to repentance, it’s not the thought that counts, but the action taken against it. Repentance that doesn’t result in a radical redirection of our lives is not Biblical repentance.

God had done a deep work in the Christians at Corinth that produced an external change. They did not achieve repentance on their own and neither can we, because repentance is not a work of the will but a gift of grace.

Repentance is a gift of God made possible through the perfect work of Jesus. We can’t earn it, work up to it, or cause it in our own hearts. We can only lean heavily on the grace of God and ask Him to grant us repentance.

If we recognize our sin for what it is, experience remorse for how it grieves God, and allow God to redirect our lives, we have genuinely repented. We can then have deep assurance that we are walking with Him and we can be certain of our salvation.

(Adapted by Diane Rivers from sermon entitled, “How to Be Certain You’re Saved”)

Psalm 6: I Drench My Couch with My Weeping.

Two days ago I shared a passage from The Jesus Way by Eugene Peterson.  For those of you who know Peterson’s Bible translation, The Message, I hope this leaves you wanting to read some of his other writing.

After a section on the life of David which deals with the narrative of David’s story, Peterson moves on to deal with the prayers of David, particularly the penitential Psalms, beginning with Psalm 6.

^{(NLT) Psalm 6:1} O LORD, don’t rebuke me in your anger
      or discipline me in your rage.
 ² Have compassion on me, LORD, for I am weak.
      Heal me, LORD, for my bones are in agony.
 ³ I am sick at heart.
      How long, O LORD, until you restore me?

 ⁴ Return, O LORD, and rescue me.
      Save me because of your unfailing love.
 ⁵ For the dead do not remember you.
      Who can praise you from the grave?

 ⁶ I am worn out from sobbing.
      All night I flood my bed with weeping,
      drenching it with my tears.
 ⁷ My vision is blurred by grief;
      my eyes are worn out because of all my enemies.

 ⁸ Go away, all you who do evil,
      for the LORD has heard my weeping.
 ⁹ The LORD has heard my plea;
      the LORD will answer my prayer.
 ¹⁰ May all my enemies be disgraced and terrified.
      May they suddenly turn back in shame.

The trouble that we are born into “as sparks fly upward: (Job 5:7) provides the content to this first penitential prayer.  We are not told what the trouble is:

• God’s anger provoked by sin (v.1)?
• Sickness? (Healing is mentioned in vv. 2-3.)
• Persecution? (Foes, workers of evil and enemies are referred to in vv. 7-8, 10.)

Probably all of these, but more.  The sin in the world breaks out in troubles all over the place.  Every once in a while one of the the troubles triggers an avalanche of dismay and sorrow that simply overcomes us.  There are times when an accumulated sense of the sheer mass of trouble in the world just knocks the wind out of us, knocks the prayer out of us –

• all the sin,
• all the sickness,
• all the meanness:
• damaged lives,
• broken hearts,
• child abuse,
• raped women,
• rampant hunger,
• torture,
• the grinding poverty of the poor,
• the unchecked greed of the rich,
• desecrating violations of our land and water and air,
• brutal arrogance in high places.

Details pile up.  There is a lot wrong with the world.  We have moments when the apocalyptic brutality and blasphemy loose in the world tramples our life to the ground (Ps. 7:5).  Those moments are compounded when we realize that some of the wrong is in us – we are not just observers of it, we are part of it.  Sin is not a Them thing; it is also Us.  When the two moments come together – the Them wrongs and the Us wrongs – the hurt and hate, the guilt and sin catalyze an enormous sorrow.  We find ourselves in the middle of Psalm 6 weeping our prayer:

I am weary with my moaning;
every night I flood my bed with tears;
I drench my couch with my weeping.
My eyes waste away because of grief,
they grow weak because of all my foes. (Ps. 6:6-7)

The language is extravagant – crying every night and waking up with pillow and mattress tear-soaked.  But is it exaggerated?  Maybe not.  Not at least if this prayer comes out of a heart that is in touch with the catastrophic dimensions of sin and all the tears of despair and (sometimes) repentance that flow night and day, year after year pooling into a great salt sea of sorrow:

• the tears of the lonely,
• the tears of Rachel weeping for her children,
• the tears of Paltiel weeping for Michal,
• the tears of David weeping over Absalom,
• the tears of Peter weeping outside the court of Caiaphas,
• the tears of the women on the Via Dolorosa,
• the tears of Jesus – weeping over Lazarus,
• Jesus – weeping over Jerusalem,
• Jesus – weeping in Gethsemane.

Tears, Tears, Tears.  We find ourselves swimming in a sea of tears.  **

The way of imperfection takes us through slums and suburbs, across battlefields and into refugee camps, to hospitals and homeless shelters.  We find common ground with the addicts and the abused, the victims and victimizers, the down and out and the up and out.  On the way of imperfection we find ourselves following Jesus to the well in Samaria, the sycamore tree in Jericho, the pool of Siloam, the cross on Golgotha where “Christ is in agony to the end of the world.” ***

There is much laughter and singing and dancing on this way, palm branches and hosannas.  But there are also tears and laments, rivers of them, every tear a prayer and not one unnoticed – “my tears in your bottle!” (Ps. 56:8).

~Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way pp 93-4

** The verb translated “flood” is litteraly “I swim…”  We can translate, “I swim in a river of tears.”  See Isaiah 25:11 and Ezekiel 47:5.  Charles Briggs, The Book of Psalms (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1952), vol. 1, p.50.

***Blaise Pascal, Pensees (New York: Random House, 1941), #552, p. 176.