What is repentance? Repentance is recognizing your sinfulness before God and asking Him for forgiveness of those sins. That is mainly what repentance is, but there’s more to it. Repentance means nothing if you turn around and nothing changes. Repentance is a process of giving everything to God and trusting that he will always be there for you. True repentance isn’t just regretting sin and moving on, true repentance is a change. Luke 3:8 says, “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.” When we repent God not only forgives us, but produces fruit in our lives. Some might see repentance as justification for sin, some think “God will always forgive me so i can sin as much as i want.” No, this is not the case. Just because God forgives does not mean you can keep the same worldly view of sin. If you have truly repented, you will no longer view sin as something to test or play around with. If you have truly been changed, you will recognize that no matter how small or large you think sin is, it isn’t something to take lightly. We should all be fleeing from sin, but obviously no one is perfect, so you will sin again. Some may ask, “what’s the point of repenting if i’m gonna keep on sinning?” You may feel like you are disappointing God but He doesn’t keep track of your sin, He greets you with love and mercy you just have to run back to Him. Repentance is not about how many times you lose to sin, it’s about not giving up and running back to God every time. Peter is a good example of running back to God. After Peter had denied Christ he had horrible shame and guilt. When he saw Jesus from his boat while fishing, he didn’t go about his day, he jumped out and swam to Jesus to repent. Instead of greeting Peter with anger and judgement, Jesus greets him with love and mercy. It’s ok to be a failure, we all are, but don’t be a quitter. Don’t give up on God. Jump out of your boat everyday for God.
