Repentance

"As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him."

-Matthew 3:16

      What is repentance? Repentance is an act of turning away from sin and deciding to change. Repentance is necessary for everyone to do in order to approach God. Why? We all have sinned, and as I mentioned in another post, we are all responsible for our sins. We chose to sin. Therefore we have to repent for our sins because we are the ones who have committed them. We cannot blame someone else or something else. We are the ones who need to repent.

      So how do we repent? Repentance has four steps, according to "The Jesus Creed". The steps are conviction, confession, commitment, and consequences. In order to repent we need to be convicted of our sins, and realize how much they hurt God. We need to tell God the truth about our sins and confess to Him. We need to decide to change our actions based on our confession, and we need to demonstrate that we have truly repented. I think it is easy to fake repentance, or not repent completely. We usually can be convicted and confess our sin, but we often forget that true repentance requires change in our actions and attitude toward sin.

      There is a problem with repentance; we aren't perfect. Only a sinner needs to repent, but only a perfect person can repent perfectly. What am I taking about? We are so caught up in sin we don't even realize how bad it is. We think we understand, but our sinful nature corrupts us and we fail to truly comprehend the destructive and evil nature of sin. However, a perfect and sinless person really understands sin and how much it hurts God. They aren't corrupted by sin and therefore can truly perceive it correctly.

      Well we aren't perfect, and if we were, we wouldn't need to repent. So what can we do about this? Truthfully, nothing. We can't repent perfectly- but Jesus can. Jesus was the only perfect person who lived on this earth, therefore He was and is the only person who can repent perfectly. In the bible Jesus asks John the Baptist to baptize him. Baptism is part of repentance. Why did Jesus repent if He was already perfect? Jesus lived on the earth for one reason; to demonstrate His love for us. He lived for us. Jesus was baptized not for His sins but for ours. He repented for our sins and He did it perfectly, so that we could live without guilt or shame. He only asks that we allow Him to repent for us and participate in His repentance. We still need to repent but we also need to participate in the repentance of Jesus, because it is perfect.

-Smart