Understanding God, Myself, and the WorldSample

The importance of repentance

When we think of repentance, we usually understand it to be the act of saying “I’m sorry.” We see repentance primarily as the confession of our sins and wrongdoings before God or before the people we might have wronged. However, even though confession is an important part of repentance, it isn’t really what defines repentance. Repentance is something much more than saying sorry. Repentance is a change of mind which also leads to a change of behaviour. When we say that we repent of something, then it ought to mean that we had a change of mind (we realised that what we were doing was wrong and why it was wrong) and we also stopped doing that which we realised was wrong. 

The parable of the two sons in Matthew 21:28–32 illustrates the importance and the nature of repentance perfectly. Both sons lacked self-awareness. One son was impertinent and refused his father. The other son was deceitful, pretending to be a good son. But only one of the two sons “changed his mind”. This is to say that only one son had the ability and a measure of self-awareness to see what he had done and the maturity to change his ways. 

Repentance also becomes more difficult when it involves other people. Someone else might have hurt us and in return we hurt them back. It is then much easier to see the splinter in someone else’s eye than the plank in our own eye. Some refuse to see that they are hurting other people and will not deal with the issue. They are surprised when relationships fracture around them. Some people will never repent of the things they did to you, but the onus remains on each of us to have the self-awareness to repent of the things we do wrong, even if the other never does, because we value our relationship with the Father and because we desire a clean heart (in the language of Psalm 51). 

It is also important to mention that true repentance is impossible without God’s Spirit leading us. It is when we see, and taste, the amazing grace of Christ, through the witness of the Holy Spirit, that we are changed. It is God’s goodness (displayed most clearly on the Cross of Christ) that leads us to repentance. 

Repentance is not just “saying sorry”, but also completely turning away from something. Reflect on your own life. Are there still things in your life that are hurting others? Ask God to help you change your ways so that your life can be a blessing to others.