I recently had an extremely hard meeting with a man twice my age, who God called me to speak to and call to true repentance for some habitual sin. I felt like Jonah when he was on his way to a city full of people he was exceedingly angry with to call them to “repent or…be destroyed” but would rather see Gods wrath towards Him then his mercy (Jonah 3:4)!
I realized, after much prayer, that I had some of my own sin to deal with first. In the end, God’s will was accomplished and through this process, the Lord allowed me to confess and repent of my own sin while allowing this man to confess and repent of his. I also was blessed to study what it means to “truly repent”. Here is what I have seen in “true repentance” according to God’s word:
Deep Sorrow Over The Sin.
The apostle Paul says in 2 Cor. 7:10 that there are 2 sorrows the world feels toward sin. One, Godly sorrow, leads to repentance and salvation, but the other, worldly sorrow, just leads to death. Godly sorrow needed for true repentance, that I am referring to, is not a “sorry I got caught” or “sorry, please don’t discipline me” kind of sorrow, because that is just worldly sorrow which leads to death. True, Godly sorrow comes from the hurt that we caused God and from feeling the distance it has caused in the loving relationship we have with Him. This comes from a broken heart and deep pain that can only be healed by returning to a loving God. (Psalm 51:10)
Much Shame.
Ezra 9:6 “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens.
Is shame attached to your sin or is it just something fun you play with? For the believer this should hurt and humiliate us and God uses this to lead us to precious, beautiful repentance! This is not to be confused with condemnation. “For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:17). The sins of the Christian/believer have been paid for in full by Christ’s death. This shame makes it hard to lift our eyes to the Lord, but it brings in a humility that causes us to worship God for the perfection, forgiveness, and hope offered in Jesus.
Great Humility.
There should be no lengths to how far you will go to show you are truly repentant. There should be nothing too embarrassing or too hard to do in order to show that you are greatly sorry and that you desperately want to make things right. Humility will cause us to bring our secret sins out into the light to expose them. Humility causes us to make things right with the ones we have sinned against. Humility drives us to set up accountability to fight against sin. When caught in sin, the last thing we should be thinking is, “I feel terrible, but I don’t want anyone to know” or “How can I keep this quiet?”. This reveals that your heart is in a state of worldly sorrow, which will lead to death!!
Change in Action.
2 Cor. 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.”
At the core of repentance we change our mind about the sin, which leads us to change our actions. True repentance will always bring about a change in action, so a truly repentant person will not habitually live in the same sin, but live obediently to Jesus! Our sin nature will not be gone until we are with our savior so to expect perfection would be foolish. But to expect self-control (2 Tim. 1:7) and victories along the way more than failures shows that we have been freed from the slavery of sin and can now walk in righteousness (Phil. 4:13, John 8:34-36, Romans 6:16) and the good works that God has prepared before hand (Eph. 2:10). This is the gift we have in Jesus and the power we have in the Holy Spirit!
If we only confess sin, but do not truly repent, then there is nothing stopping us from doing it again. God tells us that sorrow begins the process (2 Cor. 7:9-10) and we are to ultimately, in repentance, do a 180 degree turn, walking away from sin and walk rightly toward the One who has created and saved us. God desires repentance for us because He loves us greatly! Jesus has paid the price for your sin and my sin. He loves us so much that he died for us. Let us stop living in the unrepentant, habitual sins that Jesus died for and begin to walk in the righteousness that He has called us into.
Where are you believer?
Do you just feel bad or are you broken over your sin? Do you just want to play with sin or do you want to kill it? Are you only confessing sin, but not repenting? This leads to death!
Let us be broken over our sin and begin to reveal all of our hidden sins so that we can put them to death through the power that we have in the freedom that comes from Jesus Christ! Let us see how destructive our sins are and how good God is, the same way that King David did when he sinned and cried out to God in Psalm 51:10-12.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
…..Gods grace is toward you and salvation is found
in Jesus Christ! Jesus Loves You!
