The Gift of Repentance
One of the questions I have found myself asking over the past few years is why do I still sin? If I am a Christian and apparently love Jesus so much, why do I still sin? It is a question that has driven me to worry and guilt. What I have found is something that I wish someone would have told me from the start. You will still sin, but your attitude and heart toward sin will change. God regenerated my heart at the time of salvation and gave me a new heart with new desires, but as T.W. Hunt points out, my new heart still has to contend with established habits, the culture in which we live, and the work of Satan. So I will still sin, which is why God gave the gift of repentance.
Repentance is truly a gift, one that I have known much of, because as you can guess, I have done much sin. I am a sinner by nature and by choice, and the more I follow Jesus the more I realize that is true. One thing that was made clear to me recently by Pastor Mark Driscoll, is that there is a difference between admitting my sin and repenting of my sin. At times I am willing to admit my sin but not actually willing to do anything about it. I like the way T.W. Hunt describes real repentance “sharing the grief of God over our sin”. Which means I don’t just hate the consequences of my sin because I got caught or it made my life harder. I hate my sin because I love my God, and it grieves my heart. Repentance is not always easy to come by. My heart can easily get hardened from my sin, which keeps me from being healed. At times I have to pray for repentance. Other times the Holy Spirit just brings the smack down and I find myself face down on my living room floor. I have wept so hard over my sin on some occasions that I have had to throw up. These moments are amazing by the way. It is such a gift when God turns me around and allows me to see my sin for what it truly is, not the way it was presented to me at the time. Times of weeping with God over my sin have changed me and healed me in truly miraculous ways. Although I hate my sin I am not as surprised by it as I used to be. I am certainly getting better at staying away from it, but when it does happen, I now seize the opportunity to cure my self-reliance and renew my need for Jesus. Instead of getting weighed down by guilt, I have learned to ask myself “What is the deepest truest desire of my heart? Is it to please God or to please myself?” If it is to please God then I am rest assured, in spite of my sin I am still a child of God because I have trusted in Jesus.
1 John 1:12- “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”
Thank you Jesus!
