What does it mean to Repent? What is repentance?
After a deeper study of repentance in the original language, I think we’ve got it wrong.
I was reading today in Acts 2 and 3, and I was reading from some newer translations. Two scriptures stood out:
Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:37-38, emphasis mine)
Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away. (Acts 3:19, emphasis mine)
You hear this term quite often, “Repent of your sins,” implying that repentance of sins is a turning away from sins, to stop sinning. But, I don’t think that’s what the original language was implying. If you search through a more accurate word-for-word translation (KJV or NKJV), I can’t find a single instance of Jesus saying, “Repent of your sins.” He never said that. He said, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”
Look at the original Greek word for “repent” – metanoeo. It comes from two root words, meta and noeo.
Meta means an over-arching change. As Bob Hamp points out, there’s a difference between “morphing” and “meta-morphing”. Morphing is changing from within something similar. Meta-morphing, on the other hand, is changing from a caterpillar to a butterfly. It’s an over-arching change–a broader, more high-level change.
Noeo is where we get the word Knowledge. It means to think, to perceive, to understand.
So, combine the two meta-noeo, and you have a word that means “an over-arching change in how you understand or perceive”.
The message Jesus had for us was not “stop sinning so that you change your thinking” – his message was “change the way you think and you’ll stop sinning”.
What most people miss today is that our sins are dealt with, done, covered, taken care of. Jesus died “once for all” (Hebrews 10:10) and provided “eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12). He no longer has to die for your sins. All your sins (past, present and future) were taken care of once and for all.
Now that are sins are gone, we need to repent.
Chasing your Passion
From this year’s devotional from Gateway Church called “Let’s Go!”:
God wants to use you … to send you. Don’t think you’re too young or too old for Him to use you. Regardless of your age, His plans for you are so much greater than you could ever imagine. What stirs your heart? What burning passion has God given you? Don’t grow weary and give up. The dreams He has placed in your heart He will accomplish—in wonderful, creative, unexpected ways—if you choose to seek Him, trust Him and obey Him. Ask yourself today: “Am I willing to be open to God’s will for my life?”
I seem to always struggle with this tension of “lay down your life” and “what are your dreams/what are you passionate about”. This scripture from Matthew 16:24-25 is clear:
Then Jesus said to the disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me. If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life.”
Questions like “What stirs your heart?” and “What are you passionate about?” seem to be conflicting with “give up your life for me, and you will find true life.” Because what if your passions are in conflict with your calling?
I think the key is the very next verse: “And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process? Is anything worth more than your soul?” v26. A wrong motivation is to “gain the whole world” at the cost of losing your soul. To save your soul, come to Christ, and let him resurrect the Godly passions that were wired into you when God formed you in your mother’s womb:
“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous–and how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God! They are innumerable!” Psalms 139:13-17, NLT.
I like what Erwin McMannus wrote on the back of one of his book covers. He simply said, “Since God has changed your heart, he can now trust your passions.” I think that is the key. I have a new heart, a new motivation, a new desire. When I think about my dreams, my desires, my passions, they are rooted in glorifying God. So, God can trust my passions.
What makes your heart come alive?
Stop praying for revival, and BE the revival
Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now. — TERESA OF AVILA
My 2010 New Year’s Resolution is to stop praying for revival and BE the revival.
Divine Power within us to ask
This week, I’ve had some wonderful connect time with God. He was reminding me of Ephesians 3:20. We have such a limited understanding of what this scripture means, because we so often only quote the first part of it: “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think…”
And that’s where we stop. Sure, God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think. That’s God at work, but there is a part B to this scripture, one we often forget to include when we quote this. Here’s the full verse:
“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.”
God can do amazing things–exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or think–but, he can only work “according to the power that works in us.” That word “according to” is more of a limiting context. God can only work according to what power is at work in us. We are the conduit, the valve of God’s power at work in the earth. Is your valve wide open for God’s power to flow through you? Or, are you just dripping?
God deposited his power in us through Christ. Early in Ephesians 1:19-20, Paul clarifies that this same power raised Jesus Christ from the dead, and lives inside of us today. God can really do amazing things, but it’s “according to the power that is in us” already.
This week, God began to speak and show me how to tap into this power through passion, through our spiritual heart. Here’s what he said to me:
Son, I am able to do so much in you, and it happens through you. You are a conduit of my power, according to your faith. Believe that it is there, right now, inside you. Creative power, divine power to doing all that you need to do, son. It’s there. And, because it’s there, I can do exceedingly, abundantly, above all you could ask or think based upon that power inside you. So, ask, think, believe, son.
What do I ask for, Father? I’m not sure what to ask.
Son, you ask what’s on your heart, what you are passionate about, what you need? Son, you have a new heart. I can trust your heart. Even when your flesh is loud, screaming and very strong, I know that your heart–the real part of you–is not set on sin. It is set on righteousness, and my Holy Spirit is a seal to show that.
So ask, son. Believe. Then, watch me work in you and through you.
Encouraging words. Do you find it hard to believe that God loves your new heart, your new spiritual heart that Jesus died to give you? It’s quite unfathomable, but it’s true. Scripture is peppered with God’s love and grace towards.
Are you a Sinner or Saint?
I’m learning more and more that in Christ, we are not sinners. There is no sin in us when we receive Christ.
In Christ, we are dead to sin (Romans 6:2). We are free from sin (Romans 6:18-22). It was dealt with on the cross. When we receive Christ and are baptized into this death, then we have died to sin. We are no longer “sinners”. Rather, we are “saints” (called ones).
Think about what John said when he saw Jesus coming to be baptized. He said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Did you see that? What did Jesus take away? “The sin of the world.” Reminds me a bit of the often-quote scripture, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world…” He sent his son to die for the sin of the world.
We must move from a place of a “sinner mentality” to a “saint mentality”. Do you often have thoughts like, “I’m such a sinner”? Or, “I can’t go to God, because I messed up yesterday.”
In Christ, you are not a sinner. You are a saint. And, you can boldly go to the throne of grace in your time of need (Hebrews 4:16). And not only that, you are seated with Christ in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). And, if God cannot sit in the presence of sin, then you are free from sin. Completely free.
Think about this scripture from John 16:8-11 where Jesus explains why it is good for him to go to heaven and send us the Holy Spirit. He explains what the Holy Spirit’s job is here on earth:
And when He [the Holy Spirit] has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
of sin, because they do not believe in Me;
of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more;
of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
It tells us immediately what the conviction of sin is, “because they do not believe in [Christ]“. Notice it didn’t say, “of sin, because they do not know the difference between right and wrong.” Sin is not believing in Christ. So, believing in Christ means your sin is gone.
That’s why the second in that list is “of righteousness, because [Christ] goes to the Father”. If you are in Christ, you are free from sin. Most believers understand that Jesus died for their sins. What most believers don’t understand is that if you have put your faith in Christ, then you are righteous. You have been “saved by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
So, the Holy Spirit’s job is to convict Christians that they are righteous in Christ. And, through that righteousness, we have access to God our Father. We are children of God (John 1:12). We are justified (Romans 5:1). We are friends of Christ (John 15:15). We are saints (Ephesians 1:1).
Can Christians still commit sin? Yes, of course. But according to Romans 7, it’s the sin in my flesh, not who I am in Christ.
“For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.” Romans 7:15-17.
Paul talked about this “body of death”. He said in the next verse (18), “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells.” He understood that in the flesh, there may be sins, but it doesn’t define who we are. In Christ, we are saints, we are free, we are seated with him at the right hand of God.
Recent Posts
- What does it mean to Repent? What is repentance?
- Chasing your Passion
- Stop praying for revival, and BE the revival
- Divine Power within us to ask
- Are you a Sinner or Saint?
- Freedom thru Forgiveness 7
- Freedom thru Forgiveness 6
- Freedom thru Forgiveness 5
- Freedom thru Forgiveness 4
- Freedom thru Forgiveness 3
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