Little Jimmy and Jeannie were having their usual sibling spat. Jimmy said something hurtful to Jeannie and she began crying loudly enough for neighbors two blocks away to hear her. Their mother rushed into the room to see what the commotion was all about. Jeannie told her what Jimmy said. Jimmy just looked the other way and mumbled, “Sorry.” But he couldn’t conceal an impish smirk.
It wasn’t long before Jimmy moved beyond the “sorry” stage. His mom decided his repeated misbehavior required more than a scolding. So, while sitting in his room without his beloved “screens” – his tablet and TV – Jimmy discovered what remorse was all about. He was still sorry, but mainly because he had been caught being mean to his sister and was being disciplined.
The circumstances may differ, but each one of us at one time or another (and probably much more than once) has had encounters with these three stages of making amends for wrongs we have done. We might feel sorry because we were caught in the act of doing something we shouldn’t. Remorse comes when we have to face the resulting consequences. But true change comes only in the repentance stage,
One dictionary defines repentance as, “reviewing one’s actions and feeling contrition or regret for past wrongs, which is accompanied by commitment to and actual actions that show a change for the better.”
This “commitment to personal change and the resolve to live a more responsible and humane life,” as Wikipedia states it, is at the heart of what it means to begin a healthy, growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Literally, to repent means to turn from something and turn toward a very different form of behavior. Biblical repentance is turning away from sinful habits and practices and turning to Jesus for forgiveness.
It’s important to understand the difference between true repentance and simply feeling sorrowful for our words, thoughts or actions. As 2 Corinthians 7:10 tells us, “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”
The passage continues, “Consider what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what zeal, what vindication!” The great news that when we repent of sins, laying them at the foot of the cross, we no longer need to carry them around. We’re released of our burdens of guilt. As Galatians 5:1 says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery [to sin].” We’re not freed to do whatever we want, but freed to be and become everything God wants us to be.
Too many people find themselves in bondage, enslaved to sins despite their regret, feeling “sorry” for things they continue to do. An alcoholic feels sorry for having fallen “off the wagon” again. Someone has fallen prey again to the lure on online pornography. Another person has taken another blow to personal integrity, acting unethically or dishonestly once more and feeling sorry, even remorseful. But not yet at the point of repentance.
My life has been punctuated with times when my thoughts and actions controlled me, rather than the other way around. I’d beat myself up for my repeated failures. Sorrow and remorse were continual friends, but it wasn’t until I reached the point of repentance that things began to change.
There’s a misconception that we must “clean ourselves up” before approaching Jesus, but at the heart of the Gospel message is the truth that we can’t. Times when I prayed with resignation, “I give up, Lord. I can’t do it,” turned out to be some of the best moments along my spiritual journey. Because it was as if He responded, “I know you can't. But I can, and if you’ll let Me, I’ll do it through you.”
Speaking to a crowd of onlookers in Jerusalem who had observed the healing of a crippled beggar, the apostle Peter said, “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord” (Acts 3:19).
It wears us out, doing and thinking and saying things we know we shouldn’t while not doing and thinking and saying things we know we should, and then repeating the pattern day after day. As Jesus said, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). Rather than shrugging our shoulders in resignation thinking, “That’s just the way I am. I can’t help it,” we can trust as did the apostle Paul, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13).
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