Through My Own Eyes

Throughout the Old and New Testaments of the Bible we are constantly instructed to repent of our sins, but what even is repentance? Why must we repent of our sins? What is the importance of repenting overall? Follow along as I discuss some reasons why repentance is crucial to our walk with God.

The first thing we can do is to define what repentance is, and more importantly what it isn’t. Repentance (in biblical terms) means a change in action in mind and in heart; in Scripture it means to turn away from sinful behavior wholeheartedly, to not be half-hearted but with a full sincere devotion. God doesn’t just desire for us to repent when we sin but also commands that we do so; Isaiah 55:6-7 mentions that we need to seek God and repent while we have time, because life is short and we humans are prone to our hearts being hardened in this life, and it is a tough one to live so it’s better to live with full devotion to God and keeping a repentant heart than to let ourselves get calloused. The key factor to the difference between false repentance and genuine repentance is the fruit it brings, whether good or bad. Genuine repentance leads to fruit exemplified by the Holy Spirit, but false repentance doesn’t bring changed behavior. When God convicts you of sin you will feel a sort of guilt about it, and you will have one of two kinds of reactions to it; you will have what’s called worldly sorrow, which Scripture says leads to death (eternal death) and godly sorrow which leads to life. Worldly sorrow will have you be remorseful, but there’s no changed behavior, whereas godly sorrow leads to real repentance because you ask the Lord to sincerely forgive you and help you to do better (you will mess up as time goes on, but you will get back up again after falling over and over (Proverbs 24:16)). When you have worldly sorrow you don’t ask Jesus to forgive you because you’re remorseful but you don’t do anything about it, so you remain in your unrepentant sin, but having godly sorrow means you truly are remorseful of your actions and you let the Holy Spirit do His work in you to repent, and you will not be perfect, not in this life and fleshly body; it is a daily walk with God, following Him and abstaining from sin as you can, and when you mess up own it up with God and He will be happy to forgive you, in fact Scripture says that He is pleased when we repent (Ezekiel 18:21-23). We’ll go over two examples, one each of genuine repentance and false repentance.

An example of true genuine repentance is the Ninevites listed in Jonah chapter 3. The Ninevites were Assyrians who were known to be very violent to their prisoners and enemies, and Jonah was basically a patriot, or at least had a patriot like mentality where he hated his enemies, the Assyrians, but God instructed Him to prophesy impending judgment that was coming to them. Jonah enters the city and does what God told him to do, and they repented, on a massive scale; it was like a revival that broke out where everyone was repenting, and it made Jonah angry because his enemies were turning from their sins. For the time they did truly repent, but they must’ve fallen back into sin as a nation (though not the same inhabitants) because judgment came and they were destroyed by the Chaldeans and Medes in 612 B.C. In the moment Nineveh did repent, and God honored that because He knows that those dead in sins don’t know what they’re doing (Jonah 4:11).

An example of someone who wasn’t repentant can be found in Judas Iscariot, where instead of turning from his sins that he committed against Christ, he ended up committing suicide by hanging himself. It’s kind of ironic that for someone who followed Christ (in a literal sense) would end up betraying Him for monetary value, but that is what Judas did. Judas betrayed the Messiah for money, because John mentions in the book of John that Judas was a thief, and that “Satan entered him” when the 12 dined with Christ (John 13:27). When Judas realized what he did he felt remorse, and how couldn’t he? He was with Jesus in His ministry for the 3 years it was; he watched Him perform miracles and watched lives being changed, but his heart was in the wrong place, and ultimately it would prove to be his end. Judas felt remorse, but he didn’t repent, not because he couldn’t since Christ hadn’t risen from the dead and ascended to heaven yet, but that he didn’t repent in sackcloth and ashes in a sense; he didn’t turn from his sins and have a real relationship with Christ. He followed Him literally, not spiritually, and therefore he gave into remorse and died. Don’t be like Judas Iscariot; believe in Christ and have faith in Him, and if you mess up ask the Lord to help you turn from your sins, because you can’t do it alone.

The second thing we can do is to explain why we must repent. In order to answer that question, we must ask another one: what part does repentance play between the two testaments? Thegospelcoalition.org states that there are two words for repentance in the Hebrew language for repentance (“shuv and naham”), while in the New Testament the word for repentance is “metanoia”. The Old Testament definition for repentance means “to return”, while the New Testament definition means “a change of mind”. The Old Testament had people repent by turning from sin, while the New Testament had people repent by changing their mind doing it by placing faith in Christ along with turning away from their sins (during the Old Testament time period Jesus didn’t take on a fleshly body yet in the sense of the virgin birth, so repentance was done in “sackcloth and ashes”, feeling remorse and turning from sinful behavior). The reason that we must repent is that faith and repentance fit together, or at least repentance results from placing faith and trust in Jesus as your Savior; God pursues you with His kindness, which leads to you responding by turning from your sin and believing in His Christ (Romans 2:4) https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/repentance/. Repentance is important because it ties in with having faith in Christ; it’s evidence of the transforming power of the Holy Spirit working in a new convert’s life by them responding to God’s call.

The importance of repenting is that it distinguishes a believer from the unbelieving world. While the unbelieving world is completely dead in their sins not even fighting the good fight the born-again believer has been regenerated and is now in a conflict that he or she wasn’t in before. Satan will use any means to bring you down, and if you fall into sin he will make you think that you can’t get back to where you were with God, but God’s grace covers whoever wants to be His child, and He is patient. Repentance is crucial to a believer’s testimony, and if a believer falls back into the mire over and over again their testimony gets less credible, and sometimes their faith is questioned (2 Peter 2:22). Repenting is a daily choice to make when a believer messes up, to wallow in their guilt or change their behavior and mindset and look up. It is God’s redemptive work being done in you with you having the desire to repent as those dead in sin have no desire to do so; only God can restore that which is broken.

Repentance is something that every believer in Christ must be consistent with as life has many curveballs and distractions, and God desires us to repent when we mess up; He commands it! Don’t ever feel like that your sins can’t be forgiven as that is the devil’s field day with the believer, to make the believer think they are beyond the realms of God’s grace when they mess up; if King David can be forgiven for the murder of his faithful servant Uriah after sleeping with his wife, if Peter can be forgiven for denying Christ under stress, and if the thief on the cross can be forgiven for his thievery and mocking Christ (Mark 15:32), you can be forgiven too when you repent. Repentance can be summed up with this verse: “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” – Romans 12:2 NASB.