True RepentanceՕրինակ

You repent with your heart

Everyone has the possibility to be a child of God. And to be accepted as His child, God asks something of you.

He asks you to make a choice.

For it is always your free will to become a child of God. God is clear: He doesn’t want any to be lost but that all come to repentance [and with that take the first step to become God’s child] (2 Peter 3:9). But God has given the final decision to you and me. It is our conscious choice and our faith.

So what must you do to become God’s child?

This is shown in Acts 2.

“What must we do to be saved?” thousands of people asked Peter when he had shown that Jesus was the Messiah. Peter answered:

“Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38)

When you read this, you see that there are a couple of steps that we must take to be able to belong to God. The first of these is repentance.

What exactly is ‘repenting yourself’?

Repenting in the Greek means metanoia, which means: ‘thinking differently.'

Repenting also means ‘turning away from the old way,' ‘changing directions,' and ‘coming to oneself.'

So you start thinking differently. You realize that your way of living and reasoning doesn’t work anymore. You realize that you can’t save yourself. You come to yourself, you surrender, and you make a conscious decision to go in another direction.

What often is taught is that you must repeat a ‘sinner’s prayer’ to be saved. But the repeating of a couple of words doesn’t save you. A sinner’s prayer is also nowhere to be found in the Bible. What true repentance is about is in your heart.

For God looks at your heart (1 Samuel 16:7). And what you speak with your mouth must align with your heart. You are saved by confessing the Lord Jesus with your mouth and believing with your heart that God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:8-10).

You can let a thousand people repeat a prayer, but if they are not ‘aware’ that they should truly repent in their hearts, they are only empty words.

So turning yourself to Jesus happens from the inside of you.

If you. from the inside of you, confess that He is Lord and Savior, then we speak of true repentance and you will become His child!