This week's audio message:
Repentance Isn't "Turning From Your Sins"
Grace For Life audio archives are here.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Repentance Isn't "Turning From Your Sins"
This week's audio message:
Repentance Isn't "Turning From Your Sins"
Grace For Life audio archives are here.
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4 comments:
You mentioned what I myself have never been able to reconcile with the Good News.
How can people say they have repented of their sin when they still sin? If repentance is turning from sin, then no one has ever really repented! Unless there are some sinless people out there. After all, the common saying about repentance is "It's not just feeling sorry for your sin, but turning away from it."
In that case, they haven't measure up to their own idea of what repentance is. Unless they claim to be sinless.
daelon,
...the common saying about repentance is "It's not just feeling sorry for your sin, but turning away from it."
Thanks for reminding me of that common saying. I should have addressed it in my message.
It's true that repentance is not just "feeling" sorry for your sin, because that is emotional, rather than mental. It is a change of feeling, not a change of mind (though they may be connected).
Also, we may "feel" sorry, or even mentally "be" sorry, yet for reasons other than true repentance (for example, "I got caught", or "I got sick to my stomach from that drunkenness", etc.). "Sorry-ness", technically is not repentance, though again they may be congruent.
So the saying you mention is just another example of the confusion surrounding repentance, which is, again, simply a change of mind (which typically leads to a change of action, the action being a result of repentance, not the repentance itself).
Whew!
Blessings,
Terry
There is a lot of good stuff here to think about. My Bible study teacher recently taught me something similar, but after a lifetime of thinking that repent means to turn from my sins, it will take a while for this to sink in. Excellent article.
Jen,
Thanks for your thoughts.
I know that when you hear something wrong over and over, especially from trusted sources, it can sure sound right.
That's the beauty of the freedom we have to always go back to the Scripture fresh, isn't it?
Blessings,
Terry
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