What Does True Repentance Look Like?

Why Is It So Difficult to Leave Sin?

Why is it so difficult for the alcoholic to quit drinking, or the person engaged in sex before marriage to abstain, or the person who beats up on their spouse to quit being violent? As Christians we focus so much of our energy on talking about God's forgiveness, which is absolutely wonderful, but much less time talking about repentance. What does true repentance look like?

It is very easy to say that you are sorry for something but much more difficult to turn away from doing the thing you say you are sorry for. Sin is difficult to leave because we often still want what we say we are sorry for. Repentance requires more than admitting sin. It requires turning away from it.

We have all said at one time or another, "I will never do that again!" only to repeat the same behavior. Yet sin is not limited to the wrong things we do. Scripture tells us that knowing to do good and not doing it is sin, sin that must be repented of (James 4:17).

From the beginning, sin has held an allure for humanity. It seems to calls us by name, appealing to our individual weaknesses and desires. The Devil knows our weaknesses and uses them to tempt us because he knows human nature.

Your weakness may not be mine. That is why we can never feel better than someone else if we don't sin in a certain way. We may not be alcoholics but we may be liars. Repentance does not mean we will never be tempted again. It means we no longer defend the sin, excuse it, or willingly make it our way of life.

Resisting Temptation and Sin

We are tempted, sometimes many times, but often we give in to sin. Some of us are tempted to drink, some to use drugs, or some to gossip, for example. Some are tempted not to study the Bible, not to pray, or not to go to church. Are we knowingly resisting what we know God is calling us to do? Sin comes at us from both sides, both the things we do that we shouldn't, and the things we don't do that we should. Scripture does not leave us without help in the battle against temptation. Jesus Himself was tempted, yet He did not sin.

Jesus used Scripture to defeat the Devil. Do we know enough Scripture to resist the temptation to sin? We are told that God provides a way of escape for us from temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13). But when we fail and fall into sin, God is gracious enough to forgive us if we repent. Not if we say we are sorry only, but if we repent.

What Does True Repentance Look Like?

Repentance means we give up the thing we are tempted to do or we do the thing we know we should. It means a change of behavior; a sincere change of behavior. We may fall back into that behavior but it won't be where we stay. We may say we are sorry because we were caught, because we suffered consequences, or because we hurt someone.

But repentance goes further. Peter wept bitterly, but eventually returned to Christ and was restored. Judas, however, experienced remorse, returned the money, and acknowledged that he had sinned, but his sorrow did not lead him back to Christ.

Is feeling terrible about what we have done the same thing as repentance? No. We can feel embarrassed, be sorry we were caught, hate the consequences, and even admit we did wrong and still refuse to honestly turn from sin. Our desire is important, but our actions are proof. Jesus said, "If you love Me, keep My commandments" (John 14:15).

Repentance does not always erase the consequences of sin. God may forgive us, but we may still need to make things right with those we have harmed. Sometimes repentance means admitting what we have done, accepting the consequences, asking forgiveness, and doing what we can to repair the damage. Repentance truly changes our direction.

Why Do People Refuse to Repent?

Scripture gives us examples of people who experienced deep regret and others who refused to repent altogether. Revelation 9 gives us one of the most disturbing examples of the human heart refusing to turn to God.

Revelation 9:13-21 gives us a window into the difficulty people have in repenting. The people in this passage had just experienced seeing a third of the population of the earth die from a plague. Such horror is difficult to imagine. The people who remained alive were just as guilty of sin as the ones who died. Only God's grace spared them. And yet we are told they refused to repent. Why wouldn't they repent?

Excuses, Blame, and Sin

When we sin, we often make excuses for ourselves. Like Adam who blamed Eve, we frequently blame those around us. We say things like, "Everyone else is doing it." Sometimes we don't even recognize sin for what it is. When our sin is hidden from others, it can be even easier to convince ourselves that it isn't harming anyone. We often convince ourselves that if it feels good we should do it. If it makes us happy, that becomes our only criterion for right and wrong.

Circumstances and past experiences may help explain why we struggle, but they never erase our responsibility. Repenting means we stop making excuses and admit we have done something wrong and then own it. Some people go even further and blame God Himself.

Perhaps the people of Revelation didn't repent because they blamed God. When you don't think you deserve punishment and punishment comes, we blame the punisher. Perhaps they believe a loving God would forever overlook their behavior.

God Desires Us to Turn and Live

But if God rewards the righteous, He must judge the unrighteous. All of us at one time were unrighteous sinners and deserving of punishment, but God has forgiven those who believed on Him and turned from their sin. Now we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. We may still struggle with sin but we will never become comfortable with it.

In Ezekiel 33:11 God says,

"Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’"

There is no joy in the heart of God when He has to punish people. He pleads with us to repent and turn from sin because when we do we will live!

Confessing our sin to God means that we acknowledge that He is God and has the right to judge us. Only then does forgiveness become as astonishing as it truly is. If we don't believe we deserved judgment, we will never fully understand grace.

But understanding our sin also requires understanding who God is. Ephesians 4:30 tells us that our sin "grieves the Holy Spirit of God." The sin of the preflood human race actually troubled God's heart according to Genesis 6:6. And Psalm 5:4 explains that "the wicked cannot dwell with God." He is all good, a God of love, and we as humans need to acknowledge that we are not.

When He loves us, He disciplines us, and He has compassion on those He loves, just as the prodigal son's Father had compassion on his wayward son. Jesus gives us a beautiful image of his compassion in Matthew 23:37,

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!"

Are we willing to have our Savior gather us under His wings?

God sent His Son to die for us, for the very sins that we and the people in Revelation 9 hesitate to repent of. Upholding judgment does not mean that God does not love us. But turning from sin begins with recognizing that it is God we have sinned against.

We Cannot Change Without God

We cannot change ourselves without God changing our hearts. Turning from sin is not just a matter of trying harder. We all know people who have tried all kinds of methods and fixes to stop a sinful habit, and often they haven't worked. It is God Himself who gives us a new heart and puts His Holy Spirit in us (Ezekiel 36:26-27). And Paul in Romans 8:26 reminds us that it is the Spirit who helps us in our weaknesses. We are not alone in our struggle. The God who lives within you is your sustainer (Psalm 55:22).

When we belong to God, sin is something we should hate as much as God does. When we find it in our own lives, repenting and turning from it should be the priority of our heart because we don't want to wound the loving heart of our Savior who died so we might live.