Of What… To What?

The word “repent” is one of the most used words in the Christian world. We rattle it off as a requirement in sermons, classes, writings, and conversations. Nearly all, if not all, who claim Christianity agree that repentance is a necessity. Unfortunately, when we start asking of what we are to repent, the answers start getting muddy and agreement starts to fail. Over time, we have all tried to make neat tidy boxes out of godly characteristics to make our service to God easier, to make us feel like we are doing our utmost without having to face too much trouble. Unfortunately, as with all godly characteristics, repentance is neither easy, untroubled, or neat and tidy. It has, however, been portrayed with remarkable clarity in the pages passed on to us through the Holy Spirit.

Repentance is not a declaration or a ritual. The original word in Hebrew carried the idea of turning around in one’s tracks and returning to one’s point of origin. The original word in Greek meant to change one’s mind or heart. In order to receive our salvation we are to change our very motivation, everything that drives us as humans. We are to remember that the source of our entire existence and identity is God Himself and let that knowledge direct everything in our lives. Rather than focusing on specific actions or behaviors, on rules and consequences and facts and figures that order earthly life, we are to go directly to the core of ourselves and turn it back right side out.

We repent of selfishness and replace it with a spirit of generosity. We repent of judgmental attitudes toward our fellow man and replace it with compassion for all human difficulties. We repent of resentment against perceived or real injustice towards ourselves and replace it with gratitude for every good thing, however small. We repent of idolatry, of bowing and surrendering our will to any human, idea, or thing, and replace it with worship of the Almighty who is so far beyond our comprehension that He created us and loved us with all our limitations and failures. We repent of stubbornness for our own ideas and desires and replace it with total surrender to the Spirit of the Father of the universe. We repent of apathy and hate toward our fellow humans and replace it with genuine love for everyone who crosses our path, no matter how unloveable they may appear to us. We repent of bullying and browbeating, replacing those things with gentleness and kindness to every living being. We repent of arrogance of our own rightness and replace it with the humble desire to always learn, always try harder, always have a more focused soul. We repent of reliance on human actions in any aspect of life, whether our own actions or those of others, and replace it with total faith that no matter how strongly any human tries to control fate, God’s actions are incontrovertable and for our good. We repent of a life separated into carefully distinguishable and contradictory compartments and replace it with a life fully unified and saturated by the Holy Spirit of our Savior.

Once we have made that change in the core of our being, once we have returned to our Source and allowed Him to fill us, godly actions become instinct rather than rulebook. We see every human as worthy of everything God has to offer, both physical and spiritual. We see every need as worth being filled and recognize where our own skills and energy can produce the most good. We recognize every effort at caring for humanity as worthy of support and acclaim and do our part to promote such effort. Human arguments and divisions become superfluous and often hindrances, so we leave them behind in favor of emulating the One who sees only His children. We Repent forever.