When we think about repentance we may think about a bearded, cartoon-type character, dressed in a long robe, carrying a sign saying REPENT, THE END IS NEAR! Or we may picture the fellow standing on the street corner with his sign REPENT OR PERISH! Some associate preaching repentance with back-woods preachers who seem half-crazed. Well, whether or not preaching repentance seems old-fashioned to many people today, all who believe the Bible knows it is as modern as tomorrow’s newspaper. Jesus Himself said: “I tell you unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” (Lk. 13: 3). 

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Repentance has been defined as a “reversal of one’s thinking which will result in an alteration of one’s way of living,” and that’s not a bad definition. You see, when God tells us in the Bible that we must repent, He is saying we must resolve to change the way we live. It isn’t hard to appreciate the validity of God’s call for repentance when we think about drunkards or other drug addicts. We don’t have to be convinced they need to change their lives. But our problem is we often forget that all of us have sins we need to repent of. In one way or another, we have “all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3: 23). That’s why the Scriptures say in Acts 17: 30, that God “commands all men everywhere to repent.” When a person is sorry toward God for what he has done, he will change his mind about what he has done and will do, he will then begin to make changes in his life. Repentance implies the presence of sin, sorrow for the sin, and a changed attitude toward God about the sin.

 

Friend, have you reversed your thinking about God and sin in such a way that it has affected your life and caused you to really begin to do all that God commands you to do? That’s not all that’s involved in becoming a real Christian, but it is one step in becoming a Christian. Have you taken that step? For more information call, write, or E-Mail. Think on these things. 

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Dennis Abernathy