Repent...and Keep On Repenting

What is biblical repentance? It’s hardly ever addressed in our pulpits so most of us don’t even know.

Repentance is not despair over having been caught doing something that I shouldn’t have been doing; it’s not being regretful that since I got caught there is now a price to pay; it’s not disappointment over the discomfort or inconvenience the consequences of my sin is now having on my life.

Genuine biblical repentance is measuring my sin against God’s holiness and being utterly horrified at how I measure up.

Repentance is a heart broken over what my sin did to the sinless Son of God as He hung on that cross on Calvary’s hill. It’s knowing that I caused His beard to be plucked out; I caused Him to be whipped until His flesh was hanging in shreds; that I caused His brow to be pierced by thorns that were drove into His scalp by sinful men who beat Him about His head with rods; that I brought shame and humiliation on Jesus; that it was for me that His precious hands and feet were nailed through so that He might hang from the cross suspended by His own weight–suffocating and in complete agony.

It’s understanding that I caused God the Father to look down upon His own Son and pour out His holy wrath against my sin–on Him; it’s realizing that while the suffering that Jesus bore on the cross was excruciating, being rejected and crushed by His Father was 10, 20, 100 times more excruciating.

It’s realizing that I have absolutely nothing to offer God. He doesn’t need me. He is complete in Himself.

It’s realizing this and yet also understanding that while He doesn’t need me…He wants me; so much so that He was willing for His only begotten Son to die alone and in agony in order to bear my sins so that I could one day come to Him in repentance and live.

It’s sorrow over being a sinner. It’s the deepest regret possible that I am…and will continue to be…a sinner. It’s horror over my inability to stop being a sinner. It’s realizing, along with Paul, that it is I who is the chief of sinners.

It’s going to God day after day asking forgiveness for failing yet again to live up to His righteous standard–and knowing that since I belong to Him, He will forgive…and forget.

It’s loving Him too much to abuse this privilege. It’s loving Him so much that I seek in every way possible to know Him a little bit better each and everyday so that my walk with Him might be a little bit more holy…more pure…today than it was yesterday.

Repentance is finding His will through searching His Word…and obeying it. It’s being aware of the slightest prompt by the Holy Spirit–don’t think this…don’t say that…turn off this movie–and loving Him so much that I will rush to obey it…even when it inconveniences me…even when others laugh at me…and that while I am obeying Him, I will ask His forgiveness…and He will grant it.

It means that I will turn away from sin, that I will stop engaging in sinful activities, that I will love God more than I love the things that I used to derive so much fun from.

It’s understanding that many of the things that bring me so much pleasure are the very things that put Jesus on the cross. Repentance is dying to my desire to engage in worldly pleasure. It is loving God more than I love this world…even when others shun me for being “weird”.

True biblical repentance means to keep on keeping on repenting of my sins…again and again…day after day…night after night…and knowing that, since I am seeking to please and obey God, He will never fail to grant me full and complete forgiveness…when I repent.