True & False Repentance

Art by Kyle Reed

Why do I keep making the same mistakes?  In Mark 1:15 we read that we are to repent and believe. There has unfortunately been too much 'junk mail' style evangelism that tells us 'we may already be a winner' while it fails to mention anything about the cost, the requirement of repentance and believing. Junk mail style evangelism tells us that 'God loves you just the way you are', but the truth is that God loves us too much to leave us that way, in the bondage of sin that separates us from Him. That is why we are to repent and believe.

What is the difference between true and false repentance? When the holiness of God has been diminished, there appears to be no need for more than just an apology to God for our occasional sin. This diminished holiness causes true turning back to God to not be a consideration, for if we have no standard target to aim for we can never really miss –        'we may already be a winner'.

Pastor Dave has taught that “repentance is confession with legs”, it is sorrow with an intent to change direction. False repentance has no standard, and there is a loss of purity and holiness. In false repentance there is an elimination of personal guilt by our renaming what God calls sin into something that man calls normal. True repentance includes a changing of ones mind about God, about ourselves and about sin. True repentance senses an inner conviction of a sin, a sin that is becoming less desirable as our behaviors change. May we be a people who repent and believe.

As we consider true and false repentance let's spend some time looking to the Word to pursue all that repentance includes;

1 Kings 8:47 acknowledgement of guilt and personal responsibility

2 Chronicles 32:26 the slaughter of pride

Job 42:6 despising oneself

Jeremiah 5:3 humility under correction

Jeremiah 31:19 deep sorrow over the wrong we have done

Ezekiel 14:6 renunciation of past sins

Ezekiel 18:31; 36:26 receiving a new heart and spirit