Repentance is necessary. It draws a person close to God. The further someone has gone from God, the more one has to gain by drawing near to Him.
Start a journey of repentance! To “repent” means to “return” to God’s ways, and begin a path of atonement in Christ. Not sinning is a challenge, and it takes God’s help. If a person has failed and failed again, success in a particular area may seem out of reach; this website teaches a person how to circumvent these mental walls built by self-doubt and shame.
Jeremiah 15:19 says, “Therefore this is what the Lord says: If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me...” The word “repentance” is “teshuvah,” in Hebrew. The word literally means “to turn.” We regret a mistake or negative action and resolve to never do it again. Repentance is a continual prosses of staying centered on the Kingdom of God.
Repentance takes regret, a confession of sin, and a choice to return to righteousness. A person must attempt to right any wrongs and make amends (Leviticus 26:40-45). As you turn to God, He will turn to you. This is a promise of the “new covenant” originally described by the prophet Jeremiah.
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah. 31:31-31)
The Choice
Both good and evil are necessary for the existence of free will. God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,” and gave them the choice to accept His authority or refuse it. They chose rebellion. They exercised the freedom of choice and chose spiritual and physical independence. We, their children, have each done the same. We’ve chosen independence and it’s become a source of suffering for each of us. With each choice made we are free to accept the will of God or refuse it.
Micah 6:8 says,
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”
What does it mean to act justly? Newton’s third law of motion is: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Justice is the reaction to our action. God’s instructions of what good and evil are explains to us what kind of reactions we will get when we choose life, and it also explains what kind of reactions we will get when we choose death. God is a just God – He is a rewarder of those who seek Him, and a punisher of those who disobey Him (Hebrews 11:6 | Isaiah 13:11).
This repentance journey was created to help you understand you have a seed inside of you that God wants you to cultivate. The fruit of that seed is for you to understand what God’s definition of good and evil are, and then for you to decide if you will choose life or death.
What Is Sin
In James 4:17 it says, “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” In order to know what you ought to do, you have to study God’s instructions. As you learn the instructions of God, you work through the process of applying them in your life. To repent is to turn to God’s instructions. Proverbs 28:9 says, “If anyone turns a deaf ear to my instruction, even their prayers are detestable.”
Paul says in Romans 7:7-13, “What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.”
God’s desire is for you to rule over sin (Genesis 4:7), and to transform the ungodliness into godliness (Titus 2:12).
How Often Do I Need To Repent
Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:9-13 to repent every time we pray. If we do not really need to worry about our sins once we accept Jesus as our Savior, and there are no consequences to sin, why are we going to be judged based on our actions as Paul says in Romans 2:5-11 or in 2 Corinthians 5:10? Paul said, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” Repentance is the tool God has given you to be in a position to hear and see what corrections to make to find your place (position) in the Kingdom of God.