The Best News Ever: You’re the Worst Person in the WorldSample

Once we acknowledge our need and confess our sin, we need to repent. This is a glorious thing!

Yes, we admit we are the worst, but then we accept and delight in and find confidence in the reality that because of Jesus, we are no longer us. We are now one with Christ. We share in His victory. We are reconciled to God!

We see the term repentance taken from two Hebrew words in the Old Testament. One is “shuv,” which means “to turn back,” and the other is “naham,” which has many meanings — “to sigh, to be sorry, to pity, to console, or to rue, to avenge, to comfort, to repent.”

In the New Testament, the word repentance comes from the Greek word “metanoia,” which means to change your mind.

See, it’s not just about pointing out your offense. It’s about the very important next step of “changing your mind,” turning from your sin.

Maybe you’re still like, “What?” I grew up chewing on words like repentance, sanctification, and propitiation and tried to put them into practice before really understanding what they meant.

So, let me make it even simpler for you.

Have you ever seen that episode of The Office when Michael Scott doesn’t understand a budgetary surplus, so Oscar, the accountant, is trying to explain it to him, and he still doesn’t get it? So, he says, “Why don’t you explain this to me like I’m five.”

Oscar responds, “Your mommy and daddy give you ten dollars to open up a lemonade stand ….”

Sometimes, with these big-word concepts in Christianity, it’s helpful to have it explained to me as if I’m five. Not because my brain doesn’t work, but because faith in Jesus is so simple a child can understand it, but it’s really easy to overcomplicate.

So, with all due respect to your intellect, let me tell you what repentance is as if you were five.

It’s not just saying, “God, I did bad.” It’s saying, “God, I did bad—now, I’m going to do it your way.”

This sounds so simple, right? Yet it’s so hard to truly mean it when we say it. That’s because true repentance is a miracle. It was sheer grace from God that His Spirit led me to take the small step of obedience in confession. The confession led to humility, which led to me walking in a new direction. I walked away from hiding, darkness, secrets, and shame and into the light of a lifestyle of openness, honesty, freedom, and peace.

I’m not sure you’ll be healed from whatever it is you battle the same day you confess, but here’s one thing I am sure about: you won’t be healed any other way.