“Repentance” sounds like a harsh word to many but it is an essential aspect of the gospel and has been called “the first word of the gospel.” When John the Baptist preached, he said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2). When Jesus began to preach, He said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 4:17). When Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, he told his listeners to repent! (Acts 2:38)  

So…. What is REPENTANCE?   

It is an action that comes from sincere regret or remorse. It is the act of leaving what God has prohibited and returning to what He has commanded. Today’s world and the modern Church has, in my opinion, diminished the true definition of repentance, and changed it into something that induces guilt, obedience and borders on legalism.   

“The nature of Christ’s salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day evangelist. He announces a Savior from hell rather than a Savior from sin. And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of Fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness.” —A. W. Pink    

Repentance is NOT, “oooohhhhhh…… whoa is me! I feel horrible…. I am horrible, please don’t stop loving me God! Don’t turn your back on me!”   

Guilt is not a strategy of YHWH’s. He will NEVER stop loving us…. His reasoning for commanding us to repent is not to induce guilt, to not beat you to death- but to restore you, sustain you and RAISE YOU TO LIFE!  

Psalm 51:12 says, “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” 

To truly repent means to CHANGE DIRECTION….. in the New Testament when we talk of the ‘renewing of our minds” and becoming who God intends us to be, it means being dead to self and CHANGING DIRECTIONS from all the things in our past that kept us away from King Jesus.   

Another definition of repentance would be to come to our senses and withdraw from the path and direction we are on, turn to face the Father and pursue Him.  

To repent means to do, to act, different.   

After all, actions speak louder than words, right? We have to do different! When we truly believe, we change what we believe and change what we do. Faith is action…. true repentance requires faith. True repentance means that we are intentionally taking action and replacing whatever we are doing with King Jesus instead.   

“Lord, YOU are more important than this SIN, this TRANSGRESSION that keeps me from You.”   

We have to get up and walk in a different direction…. not lay on the ground in tears. To be sorry means to feel bad…. being repentant is a deeper decision to correct and TRANSFORM our behavior. King Jesus didn’t die so we’d be sorry…. He died and resurrected so that we’d be CHANGED!   

His thoughts are higher than our thoughts…. His ways are higher than our ways!   

2 Corinthians 7:10, “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” 

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves NO REGRET. The world loves us to feel guilty, to carry burdens- and it leads to death.  Paul makes a clear separation here in this verse between sorrow and repentance. They are not the same things! One can be sorry for their sin without repenting from their sin. Sorrow describes a feeling, but repentance describes a change in both our mind and our lives.   

So- how do we LEVEL UP? We lay our lives down- turn from our sinful ways, and declare with our whole hearts that King Jesus is more important than the things of this world that held us down.   

Christ isn’t asking us to clean our lives up, He’s commanding us to lay our lives down. There’s a world of difference between the two. 

When we seek the Lord, He will change us. We don’t have to be perfect before we come to Him. We submit to Him- we surrender, and then with His help, the things that keep us from Him will fall away!   

Psalm 34:4–5, 8, “I sought the LORD, and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!” 

All the Gospel requires is repentance and faith. That’s it. Obedience is NOT required- obedience is the RESULT of… it comes from our repentance and faith. An insistence on obedience leads to religiosity, legalism and implies that salvation can be obtained through it. If we could be saved due to our obedience- apart from the person and the sacrifice of King Jesus, then Jesus died for nothing.   

Joyful obedience comes from the surrender and submission to the King through repentance and faith!  

Let me share with you the 4 steps to true repentance. 

1. Have Godly sorrow for your sin. Godly grief hurts. It hurts us to recognize our sinfulness and our responsibility for bringing pain to others with our sin. However, if that hurt leads to repentance, it is a pain that frees the believer from regret. In the end, a Christian is glad for the grief that brought them back to the path of life. Remember- worldly grief leads to death.   

2. Confess the sin. 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” And be specific about it! Call out in confession of the exact sin that is keeping you from focusing on King Jesus. “Lord, I confess that I have been sinning by gossiping… slandering…. lusting…. idolatry….” Be specific! What we try to hide from the Lord is not covered by the Blood….. because we aren’t giving it up. You know He sees it…. right? Sinning in private, or even in the recesses of our own thoughts, simply means that YHWH is our only audience.   

3. Turn from sin. There is the repentance; you must take ACTION and walk away from it. Go in the opposite direction. I was heading THAT way due to my sin, and now I am going THIS way towards King Jesus and His will for my life.   

4. Pursue holiness. The world tells us to do whatever we need to do to be happy; God tells us to do whatever we need to do to be HOLY. Romans 12:1, “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.” 2 Corinthians 7:1, “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”    

The Apostle Paul gives us some excellent perspective on repentance in Acts 17: 24-31.  

Acts 17: 24-27, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything. Rather, He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man He made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us.” 

The apostle Paul spoke about the God who created everything, yet is distinct from His creation. Paul told them that God was bigger than any temple men’s hands could build, and could not be represented by anything men could make with their hands. We are all descendants from Adam through Noah, and that there is one God who created us all and to whom we all are obligated. Since God created us all, we should seek the Lord… though He is not far from each one of us.  

Acts 17: 28, “For in Him we live and move and have our being.’  As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’” 

These two quotations (“In Him we live and move and have our being”, “for we are His offspring”) Paul used are from Greek poets! They are attributed respectively to Epimenides the Cretan and Aratus. Now, Paul did not quote these men because they were prophets or because all their teaching was of God. He quoted them because these specific words reflected a Biblical truth, and by using them he could build a bridge to his pagan audience and the unbelieving world.   

A wonderful reminder for us…. yes? Biblical truth is interwoven throughout all of creation, all of the world- and when we can show this to the unbeliever, we can help others find their hope in King Jesus. We can help others to REPENT!   

Acts 17: 29, “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill.” 

Paul told them of our responsibility to God because we are His offspring! Since we are His kids, we are responsible to have right ideas about God, and therefore must reject the wrong ideas, such as the notion that gold, silver or stone could represent God.  

You see, at this time the Athenians had acknowledged in their altar inscription that they are ignorant of God, and Paul has been giving evidence of their ignorance. Now he declares such ignorance to be culpable!  

BUSTED!   

Guilty as charged, Romans- so what should you do about it?   

Acts 17: 30-31, “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent. For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.” 

Paul clearly went from knowing who God is (our Creator), to who we are (His offspring), to our responsibility before Him (to understand Him and worship Him in truth), to our accountability if we dishonor Him (judgment).  

Now, for the first time in his message to the Athenians, Paul referred to King Jesus and he presents Him as a righteous judge.  

Also, the emphasis on the resurrection here is important. Paul saw the resurrection of King Jesus as the assurance of the truth he was speaking of; it demonstrated that Jesus Himself, His teaching, and His work were all perfectly approved by the Father.  

Remember, God’s ultimate plan is to bring together – to ultimately resolve – all things in Christ, either through King Jesus as a Savior or King Jesus as a Judge; this will happen in the fullness of the times, during the end times.    

Repentance is a crucial step to take and process to journey as we get closer to our Savior! Here are a few takeaways:  

Submit yourself to God. When God saves us, He frees us from the chains of death (Romans 5:8), and brings us into life with Him through the death and resurrection of Christ. Repentance, in turn, produces faith in Christ alone within us (Ephesians 2:8-9), which we first confess to God, (Romans 10:9-10) and then to others as a testimony of His work (Matthew 28:19-20).  

Be honest. The only way to defeat sin in Christ is by keeping nothing hidden and practicing repentance daily. Sin cannot be dealt with if part of it is hidden or altogether deflected.  A healthy circle of friends centered around King Jesus will not judge your heart but will open theirs, reveal their brokenness, and point to the victory that is in Christ alone. The struggle against sin is not something to address every once in a while—it is a constant battle! We must confess and repent daily in order to continually fight on. 

Be real. When confessing, seek a few of your brothers or sisters in Christ, and be real with them. Walk through joys and sorrows together. Be open and shine light on your sin. Encourage each other with God’s Word and fight sin together! Allow the Lord to transform your heart; you cannot do it on your own. Confession and repentance are not suggestions to help live a better life- they are decisive actions that the Christian must take in order to fully submit to God and His glory.  

Only King Jesus can free us from sin. Through conviction, confession, and repentance, the Lord leads us away from sin and transforms us into the image of Christ. Our desire should be to be transformed by God daily by seeking Him through the reading of His Word, prayer, confession, and repentance. It is only by the kindness of God that we should be led to confess our sins, repent from our ways, and seek first our holy God (Romans 2:4).  

The enemy will do anything and everything to rob us, diminish us, and destroy us.  Any open door or foothold, he will exploit.  Sometimes years can go by and we not even notice the erosive effects.  The best way to defend that is to pursue Christ with all you’ve got, and to ask Him to show you what needs to change.   

John Wesley’s (founder of the Methodist church) mother once said, “Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things…that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.”    

Repent- for the Kingdom of God is at hand!