Repentance

Have you thought about why there is so much unrest in your life? So much to solve and clear up that you want to flee this real­i­ty. Is there a way out from the mess that we have done to our lives?

In this arti­cle we take a look at Bible pas­sages and see what true repen­tance looks like. Repen­tance is the only way to restore your rela­tion­ship with God.

In those days John the Bap­tist came preach­ing in the wilder­ness of Judea, “Repent, for the king­dom of heav­en is at hand.” (Matthew 3:1–2)

Before the com­ing of the sav­ior, Jesus, John the Bap­tist pre­pared the Jews by call­ing them to repen­tance of their sins so that they can take part in the king­dom of heav­en. In the same way, we can be part of the king­dom of God if we rec­on­cile with God.

There­fore, if any­one is in Christ, he is a new cre­ation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ rec­on­ciled us to him­self and gave us the min­istry of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion; that is, in Christ God was rec­on­cil­ing the world to him­self, not count­ing their tres­pass­es against them, and entrust­ing to us the mes­sage of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. (2 Corinthi­ans 5:17–19)

God has come near to us. He became man in Jesus; he gave himself—his life—so that we can be rec­on­ciled to him and thus become his children.

He [Jesus] came to his own, and his own peo­ple did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become chil­dren of God, (John 1:11–12)

Receiv­ing Jesus means find­ing deep uni­ty with God by agree­ing with His will; it is a full­ness that we can reach only through him.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:6–7)

We can trust that Jesus’s words are true because he nev­er sinned. His pure life is also an exam­ple for us. He did not want us to admire him as a good teacher who helps us to improve. He spoke about things that touch our lives very deeply: we have to be born from above so that we can have eter­nal life.

Now there was a man of the Phar­isees named Nicode­mus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rab­bi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Tru­ly, tru­ly, I say to you, unless one is born again he can­not see the king­dom of God.” Nicode­mus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a sec­ond time into his moth­er’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Tru­ly, tru­ly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spir­it, he can­not enter the king­dom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spir­it is spir­it. Do not mar­vel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ (John 3:1–7)

All peo­ple who are hon­est to them­selves admit that their lives are not per­fect, and they see their empti­ness. They know that although they would like to love, they are often stub­born. Although they would like to be good, they strug­gle with envy. Instead of find­ing the real pur­pose of life, their good deeds are often just acts of compensation.

Jesus said to her, “Every­one who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but who­ev­er drinks of the water that I will give him will nev­er be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eter­nal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your hus­band, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no hus­band.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in say­ing, ‘I have no hus­band’; for you have had five hus­bands, and the one you now have is not your hus­band. What you have said is true.” (John 4:13–18)

This woman longed for water which would not let her become thirsty again. Her sin­ful rela­tion­ships show that she did not find ful­fill­ment in life. Jesus uncov­ered this in her heart, and she accept­ed the con­fronta­tion with her own life and with God. Either we have the courage to be con­front­ed with God, or we turn our back to him; one thing is sure: If God is miss­ing from our life, noth­ing will sat­is­fy us, and we will not find real life. As long as we deny the fact that we need his help to make us free, we can­not get close to him.

Many peo­ple deceive them­selves: They rely on their feel­ings, on their abil­i­ties, and on their own strength. Most of them con­cen­trate on tem­po­rary ful­fill­ment and do not think about what has last­ing value—just like the younger son in Jesus’s para­ble who thought he could be hap­py on his own.

And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of prop­er­ty that is com­ing to me.’ And he divid­ed his prop­er­ty between them. Not many days lat­er, the younger son gath­ered all he had and took a jour­ney into a far coun­try, and there he squan­dered his prop­er­ty in reck­less liv­ing. And when he had spent every­thing, a severe famine arose in that coun­try, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired him­self out to one of the cit­i­zens of that coun­try, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was long­ing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him any­thing. “But when he came to him­self, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired ser­vants have more than enough bread, but I per­ish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heav­en and before you. I am no longer wor­thy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired ser­vants.”’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt com­pas­sion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heav­en and before you. I am no longer wor­thy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his ser­vants, ‘Bring quick­ly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fat­tened calf and kill it, and let us eat and cel­e­brate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to cel­e­brate. (Luke 15:11–24)

We all are lost as long as we do not find our way home—to him—to the Father’s house, where we can live close to him in his pro­tect­ing love. If we do not live with him, we turn away from his self-giv­ing love, although he came so close to us. If we do not rec­on­cile with God, we sin seri­ous­ly (grave­ly).

Real repen­tance is con­nect­ed with a deep regret of one’s sins, which we can see in this Para­ble of the Lost Son. The younger son became aware of how unwor­thy he is in front of God, and he deeply regret­ted his sins and returned to his father.

Have mer­cy on me, O God, accord­ing to your stead­fast love; accord­ing to your abun­dant mer­cy blot out my trans­gres­sions. Wash me thor­ough­ly from my iniq­ui­ty, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my trans­gres­sions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be jus­ti­fied in your words and blame­less in your judge­ment. (Psalm 51:1–4)

Every one of us needs God’s love and for­give­ness. He desires to set us free from love­less­ness, ego­tism, dis­hon­esty, envy, pride, vanity—from all our sins.

For we our­selves were once fool­ish, dis­obe­di­ent, led astray, slaves to var­i­ous pas­sions and plea­sures, pass­ing our days in mal­ice and envy, hat­ed by oth­ers and hat­ing one anoth­er. But when the good­ness and lov­ing kind­ness of God our Sav­iour appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in right­eous­ness, but accord­ing to his own mer­cy, by the wash­ing of regen­er­a­tion and renew­al of the Holy Spir­it, whom he poured out on us rich­ly through Jesus Christ our Sav­iour, so that being jus­ti­fied by his grace we might become heirs accord­ing to the hope of eter­nal life. (Titus 3:3–7)

We might be able to change some points and cor­rect some mis­takes in our lives with­out God’s help, but we will not live a real, new life. Only if God draws close to us and gives us life, we can have eter­nal life.

If we live as the major­i­ty of the world does, with­out God, our god­less deci­sions dis­tort our char­ac­ter in many ways. Let us not com­pare our­selves with oth­ers but with the stan­dard that Jesus set.

She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Nei­ther do I con­demn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” (John 8:11)

Per­haps your life can­not be com­pared to that of this adul­ter­ous woman who Jesus spoke to in this pas­sage. You might be a good per­son or even revere God in your own way, but maybe you still lack something.

And as he was set­ting out on his jour­ney, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inher­it eter­nal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the com­mand­ments: ‘Do not mur­der, Do not com­mit adul­tery, Do not steal, Do not bear false wit­ness, Do not defraud, Hon­our your father and moth­er.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, look­ing at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have trea­sure in heav­en; and come, fol­low me.” Dis­heart­ened by the say­ing, he went away sor­row­ful, for he had great pos­ses­sions. And Jesus looked around and said to his dis­ci­ples, “How dif­fi­cult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the king­dom of God!” And the dis­ci­ples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Chil­dren, how dif­fi­cult it is to enter the king­dom of God! It is eas­i­er for a camel to go through the eye of a nee­dle than for a rich per­son to enter the king­dom of God.” And they were exceed­ing­ly aston­ished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impos­si­ble, but not with God. For all things are pos­si­ble with God.” (Mark 10:17–27)

Jesus did not try to con­vince this young man to give away at least half of his wealth. Giv­ing a part of what I have is not enough. Liv­ing a moral life, keep­ing some prin­ci­ples, or being reli­gious is not sat­is­fac­to­ry. Jesus calls you to sur­ren­der your whole life to God and to put all your plans, all your wish­es, and also your wounds in his hands. Any­thing that we are not ready to give up can be this “wealth,” and it will sep­a­rate us from God if it is more impor­tant for us than ful­fill­ing God’s will. It might be knowl­edge, hon­or, fame, or a relationship.

Who­ev­er loves father or moth­er more than me is not wor­thy of me, and who­ev­er loves son or daugh­ter more than me is not wor­thy of me. And who­ev­er does not take his cross and fol­low me is not wor­thy of me. Who­ev­er finds his life will lose it, and who­ev­er los­es his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:37–39)

For some time, Jesus was fol­lowed by crowds of peo­ple because his pure love, his good­ness, and his wis­dom attract­ed them. Many left him, after he start­ed to explain what it means to fol­low him. To repent or receive Jesus is not an emo­tion­al expe­ri­ence like a burst of feel­ings; it is a deep deci­sion to obey him, to allow him to be Lord, and to trans­form one’s whole being.

And call­ing the crowd to him with his dis­ci­ples, he said to them, “If any­one would come after me, let him deny him­self and take up his cross and fol­low me. For who­ev­er would save his life will lose it, but who­ev­er los­es his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. (Mark 8:34–35)

Many peo­ple are touched by Jesus in some way, but few are ready to car­ry the cross. To be his dis­ci­ple means to accept from him not only what is pleas­ant and seems good but also to share his fate: to be obe­di­ent with­out com­pro­mis­es and thus be despised by the world.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly the “repen­tance” which is preached today does not require tak­ing up the cross dai­ly. Preach­ers refer to the grace of God and do not expect their lis­ten­ers to deny them­selves. They dis­tort the truth. We can have eter­nal life, how­ev­er, only if we know and accept the truth through God’s word.

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are tru­ly my dis­ci­ples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are off­spring of Abra­ham and have nev­er been enslaved to any­one. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Tru­ly, tru­ly, I say to you, every­one who com­mits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house for ever; the son remains for ever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:31–36)

To receive Jesus means that I ful­ly accept the truth he revealed. He becomes the stan­dard for my life. It is no longer my aims and plans and my con­cept of the world and of God that mat­ter. I am even ready to see myself as He sees me. In oth­er words: What mat­ters is the reality.

I appeal to you there­fore, broth­ers, by the mer­cies of God, to present your bod­ies as a liv­ing sac­ri­fice, holy and accept­able to God, which is your spir­i­tu­al wor­ship. Do not be con­formed to this world, but be trans­formed by the renew­al of your mind, that by test­ing you may dis­cern what is the will of God, what is good and accept­able and per­fect. (Romans 12:1–2)

Because the truth is not sub­jec­tive, I can­not adapt it to my own ideas. I have to adapt and sub­mit myself to the truth. Jesus wants us to trust him ful­ly and believe every­thing he said. We find ful­fill­ment and true love only in the truth.

Who­ev­er has my com­mand­ments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and man­i­fest myself to him.” (John 14:21)

Receiv­ing Jesus, there­fore, can not mean only to believe that he res­ur­rect­ed. Pray­ing a “sinner’s prayer” when one is emo­tion­al­ly moved is not yet repentance.

Zac­cha­eus the tax col­lec­tor was touched by Jesus’s love and mer­cy. He then decid­ed to imme­di­ate­ly sub­mit his life to Jesus:

He entered Jeri­cho and was pass­ing through. And there was a man named Zac­cha­eus. He was a chief tax col­lec­tor and was rich. And he was seek­ing to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small of stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zac­cha­eus, hur­ry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” So he hur­ried and came down and received him joy­ful­ly. And when they saw it, they all grum­bled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sin­ner.” And Zac­cha­eus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defraud­ed any­one of any­thing, I restore it four­fold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today sal­va­tion has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abra­ham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:1–10)

The “good news” of the gospel is that we can live accord­ing to God’s will. His grace makes us able to fol­low Jesus and to love with a pure heart, tru­ly, just as he loved us. If we accept this joy­ful­ly, it will also bear fruit in our lives.

As obe­di­ent chil­dren, do not be con­formed to the pas­sions of your for­mer igno­rance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your con­duct, since it is writ­ten, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” […] Hav­ing puri­fied your souls by your obe­di­ence to the truth for a sin­cere broth­er­ly love, love one anoth­er earnest­ly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of per­ish­able seed but of imper­ish­able, through the liv­ing and abid­ing word of God; (1 Peter 1:14–16, 22–23)

If some­body repents, it is vis­i­ble because Jesus puri­fies us from our ear­li­er desires and gives us the strength to “ love one anoth­er deeply, from the heart.” This fruit can­not be imi­tat­ed, it is pos­si­ble only through God’s pow­er. Peo­ple often claim to do many things in the name of Jesus, but they deceive themselves.

“Not every­one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the king­dom of heav­en, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heav­en. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not proph­esy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I nev­er knew you; depart from me, you work­ers of law­less­ness.’ (Matthew 7:21–23)

With the help of Jesus, we are able to love because God loves us. He does not send us to reli­gious pro­grams but wants us to devote our­selves ful­ly. When the first Chris­tians under­stood the mes­sage and repent­ed, they shared their lives with one anoth­er. Every day they lov­ing­ly devot­ed their lives to each oth­er (see Acts 2:37–47).

Dear friends, let us love one anoth­er, because love comes from God. Who­ev­er loves is a child of God and knows God. Who­ev­er does not love does not know God, for God is love. And God showed his love for us by send­ing his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are for­giv­en. Dear friends, if this is how God loved us, then we should love one anoth­er. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one anoth­er, God lives in union with us, and his love is made per­fect in us. (1 John 4:7–12)^[1]

If you repent and receive Jesus and the love of God, you will also be able to say:

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the broth­ers. Who­ev­er does not love abides in death. Every­one who hates his broth­er is a mur­der­er, and you know that no mur­der­er has eter­nal life abid­ing in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the broth­ers. (1 John 3:14–16)