What It Really Means to Repent

By Alexandra Copeland

Like all of us, John the Baptist was born with a purpose, and it was to prepare the hearts and minds of people for the ministry of Jesus Christ. He was not a man preoccupied with the trappings of luxuries in his day. He wore simple clothing, mostly ate meals he could glean from nature, and he preached in the wilderness of Judea. The wilderness was not uninhabited, but had villages, although not densely populated. There, the message John was inspired by God and was committed to preach was one of repentance. Matthew 3:1-2(NLT) says, “In those days John the Baptist came to the Judean wilderness and began preaching. His message was, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”

One of the huge mistakes most of us make is one of thinking in too casual of terms about the enormity of what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross. In my personal view, it is more than a sin to do so. One of the reasons we do this is because we haven’t taken the time to fully understand the depth of darkness and hell we were in. There are people that have endured unspeakable atrocities, and some are enduring them today. Even the most heinous of those doesn’t come close to the torture that the enemy heaped upon Jesus Christ on the cross. Neither have we seen or heard of the terrible things the enemy wants to do to the lives of God’s people. Had it not been for the ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we would be slaves to evil, and lost to the devil’s continual tyranny.

Colossians 1:13(NLT) tells us that Heavenly Father “…has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son.” God rescued us through His Beloved Son. Before this selfless act of Christ, his death and resurrection, the Kingdom of Heaven was closed to us. In the Kingdom of Heaven, Christ is the Sovereign King. He is our Lord, and John the Baptist preached that this new administration of grace was opening up to us. His business was to tell everyone to repent, so that our hearts would be prepared to receive the overwhelming love of Jesus Christ.

The Greek word for repent is metanoeō. It means to change one’s mind for the better, and to do so in such a way as to remorsefully amend for past sins. 2Corinthians 7:10(NLT) tells us, “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.”  A Godly sorrow is different from a worldly sorrow, and many of us have adopted the approach of a worldly sorrow when it comes to sinful behavior. A Godly sorrow is one deeply felt to the core for going against God’s Will. It’s one of deep grief for not being all that we could have been for His Kingdom.

Heavenly Father doesn’t intend for us to walk around always in regret with our heads hanging low. We’re not to campout in self-condemnation. We’ve got too much for do for His Kingdom to be that self-absorbed. Romans 8:1(NKJV) says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” Jesus Christ didn’t come to condemn us, but to save us! The salvation he made available is nothing short of transformative. We can’t receive the love of Jesus Christ and be the same as we were before we made him Lord. You may not feel differently after you received him into your heart; you may not look different or sound different, but the truth is that you ARE different. A faith transaction was made and
2Corinthians 5:17 says that you became a new creation in Christ!

You and I don’t do the heavy lifting in this spiritual transformation we’re making. The Holy Spirit that indwells us does. Philippians 2:13 tells us that through the Spirit, God works within us to will and do of His good pleasure. But our sin grieves the Holy Spirit, because the very act of sin means that we turned our backs on God. We believed in something else more than we did God’s Word. To repent is to seek God’s forgiveness, and we must do it with a heart that is pure towards Him. He’s not interested in lip service. Jesus Christ said about the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 15:8(NLT) “These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.” This isn’t how we want to be. Jesus told us to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. This is all that we are. We’re to surrender our everything to God. It’s with this same deep commitment that we’re to go to Him seeking forgiveness.

God knows our hearts. He knows when we have a Godly sorrow about our sins. So, repentance isn’t seeking His forgiveness for something we plan to continue doing. It’s recognizing that the practice of repentance is spiritual. Every time we repent with a pure heart, we give the Holy Spirit permission to help us walk more fully in the grace and forgiveness that God has made available through Christ. The Holy Spirit helps us to become more like Christ, as true repentance with a pure heart draws us closer to God. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. 

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.