Imagine that you are driving down the highway. The map tells you to turn east at the next highway, but you accidentally turn west instead. You don’t realize your mistake until you have been driving an hour in the wrong direction. It would make no sense to keep driving in the wrong direction because you will only end up going farther and farther from your destination. You need to turn around. Biblically speaking, you need to repent!
Repentance is a firm inward decision that results in an outward turning around to move in a completely different direction. It is a change of mind that involves a turning to God and a turning away from sin. You could think of it as an inward and outward U-turn.
The theme of repentance runs throughout the Bible. The Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus, and His disciples all called people to repent. When Hebrews 6:1-2 lists the six most fundamental doctrines of Christianity, repentance from dead works comes first because there can be no Biblical faith apart from repentance.
Clearly, repentance is important to God. Despite its importance, repentance is often misunderstood. Here are some things that true repentance is not:
Not an Emotional Experience
Repentance is not just an emotional experience filled with tears and sobbing. While emotions often accompany sincere repentance, someone can cry and weep over their sins without being at all repentant.
A number of years ago, I heard about a female missionary. On the Native American reservation where she worked, there was a large alcoholic man who was known for disrupting church services. Periodically, he would stagger in, create a scene, and start breaking the pews.
One particular Sunday, the missionary was preaching on Romans 10:13 when the man came in and sat down. She was thinking, “Oh no, here we go again!” To her surprise, the man sat quietly through the entire sermon and came forward when she gave the altar call.
He fell to his knees and cried out, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Save me! Deliver me!” A short time later, he got up, but everyone wanted him to get back on his knees. Because he had not cried or shown any outward emotions, they thought nothing had happened to him.
When they tried to pray for him, he said, “No. That verse said that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. I called on Him, and I’m saved!” From that day on, there was a change in his life. He stopped drinking and disrupting services, and eventually became the pastor of the church. He had truly repented.
Not Penance
Repentance is not “doing penance.” Penance is an act of self-punishment to compensate for sin.
You have probably noticed that your flesh likes to do two types of things. First, it likes to do bad things. Then, after it does something bad, it likes to do something good to pay for the bad that it did. If you eat too much chocolate, your flesh wants to make up for it and says, “I’ll skip dinner.” However, skipping dinner cannot undo the eating of the chocolate. Likewise, you and I can never undo our sins.
When I was a missionary in Mexico, I saw a group of over five thousand people making a walk of one hundred and twenty miles. They believed that, once they arrived at a certain place in Mexico City, all of their sins from the previous year would be forgiven. The walk was their penance. It was how they believed they could pay for their sins.
The fact is, you owed a debt you could not pay. If it were possible for you to have paid for your own sins, Jesus would not have needed to come. If you remember, when Jesus was praying before His crucifixion, He prayed, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me” (Matthew 26:39). It was not possible because there was no other way your sins could be forgiven.
Not Remorse
Repentance is not remorse. Remorse is what you feel when things do not work out right. A bank robber is remorseful because he was caught. He wishes that he had gotten away with his crime. He may even say, “I’m sorry”—he’s sorry all right, but only that he was caught!
After Judas had betrayed Jesus and realized the outcome of his actions, he was “seized with remorse” (Matthew 27:3). That in itself was not bad. However, remorse alone is not a change of heart or a change of mind. Remorse is merely being sorry for the consequences of what you have done.
In Judas’ case, he returned the thirty pieces of silver he had been paid for his part in the arrest of Jesus. “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.” The chief priests and the elders replied, “What is that to us? That’s your responsibility” (Matthew 27:4).
Matthew tells us that Judas went away and hung himself. Even though He had remorse and bitter anguish over the consequences of his actions, there was no change of mind. There can be no repentance without a change of mind.
Not “I’m Sorry”
Repentance is also not merely telling God you are sorry. Don’t get me wrong; it is good to apologize, but too often, apologies are little more than empty words.
This became clear to me years ago when I was praying and felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was confessing my sins because the Bible tells us to. I told God, “I’m sorry I did that, and I’m sorry I did this, please forgive me.”
God spoke to my heart: “You’re sorry, all right. You’re sorry that I don’t like your sins. You like them, and you wish I did, but I don’t!” I thought I was repenting, but all I was doing was apologizing. Repentance is not saying you are sorry and then continuing in the same direction.
Fruits of Repentance
True repentance always produces fruit. John the Baptist urged the Pharisees and Sadducees saying, “Therefore bring forth fruits worthy of repentance” (Matthew 3:8). The Amplified Bible says it this way: “Bring forth fruit that is consistent with repentance [let your lives prove your change of heart].”
Your fruit may not be immediately visible to others, but it will be visible to you because you know what is going on in your heart and in your life. You will know when there has been a change, and after awhile of consistent living, others will see your fruits of repentance, too. Your life will prove that your heart has changed.
Remember the account of Joseph in Genesis 37-45? His brothers had beaten him, thrown him in a pit, and sold him as a slave. Many years later, when their paths crossed, Joseph did not immediately trust them even though he had already forgiven them. Instead, he watched and listened to them. Only when he saw the fruit of their repentance did he know that they had truly changed their hearts and minds.
Genuine repentance comes from the heart and is always accompanied by a change of behavior. True repentance says and means, “If I had this to do over again, I would do it differently.”
Harden Not Your Heart
In Hebrews, we are told, “See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness…Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…” (Hebrews 3:12-13,15 NIV).
When God speaks to someone and they say no to Him, their heart is hardened. As He speaks to them repeatedly and they continue to say no, their heart gets harder and harder.
Thankfully, we have a choice; we do not have to have a heart that is hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Instead, we can recognize that God’s dealing with our heart is a gift from Him. Instead of saying no to God, we can say yes.
So today, when you hear God’s voice, do not harden your heart. It makes no sense to keep going in a direction that takes you farther from your destination. Repent by turning to God and turning away from sin, and your heart will remain tender toward God.
All scriptures are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.
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