A REPENT AND BELIEVE?
Dear Friends,
It is a commonplace of the Bible that to become a Christian you must repent and believe (Mark 1:14-15). Sometimes the Bible only says to "repent." Other times it only tells you to "believe." However, looked at holistically, all true repenting entails believing, and all true believing entails repenting.
Repenting is not having thoughts or feelings, or particular thoughts or feelings. It is a change of direction in your life. It involves three aspects. There are different ways to word these aspects, hopefully my words below are helpful to you.
First, repenting involves acknowledging that you are far from the Triune God and cannot fix this yourself.
Second, repenting involves knowing that you are responsible for being far from God and confessing that this is wrong. Being far from God is wrong. Your ongoing thoughts and actions keeping you from God are wrong, and you are sorry for this.
Third, repenting involves repudiation. In other words, you say to the Lord that you do not want to be far from Him, or live far from Him, any more and ever again.
But you cannot merely turn away from how you lived your life. You need to turn to the only one who can make you right with the Triune God. You need to turn to the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. What does it mean to believe in Him?
First, to believe in Him means knowing that because of who He is, and what He has done for you on the cross, that He is the one who can make you right with the Triune God.
Second, to believe in Him is more than having a set of ideas in your head, it involves an invitation. The Gospels give you many stories showing that demons have very clear and correct ideas about Jesus (See Mark 1:21-28, 32-34). In the Bible, "believing" is a relationship word. You believe "in," or "into" Him. So to believe in Jesus is to invite Him into your life - into who you are - to make you right with God.
Third, to believe in Him means giving Him permission. You not only invite Him into your life as Saviour, but you give Him permission to go everywhere in who you are and to do whatever He thinks needs to be done in you. In a very real sense, you give Him unqualified and unconditional permission to be in all of who you are and to be your Lord.
If you are at all like me, you know that you never did this perfectly. I have sobering news for you - you will never repent and believe perfectly. This does not mean you should stop growing, it just means that you need to get clear how salvation works. To demand perfect repentance or believing of yourself or others is to talk and act like you save yourself by your repenting and believing. You do not. At the deepest level, both repenting and believing are "passive" and "receptive." The Lord does everything! He takes that tiny and imperfect turning and opening of your heart and mind and takes you into Himself as He enters you to be your Saviour and Lord.
This is why repenting and believing is both a moment and a way of life, a developing habit of being. It is a moment, because you repent of your life and turn towards Him, believing in Him as your Saviour and Lord and in a moment, He does this miraculous work of new birth and He does enter in. But repenting and believing then becomes the pattern of your life in Christ. In a sense, to go farther up and farther into Him, and to have Him go deeper and farther into you, is by developing the pattern and habit of ongoing repenting and believing. You see your sin more clearly, so you repent, grateful for His finished work on the cross for you. You see His work on the cross more clearly, and grow in humble gratitude and belief in Him.
This gives you one helpful way to understand what should happen every sabbath when you gather in worship on the Lord's day. You gather to be with His people in the presence of the Triune God, to receive grace from Him, and to respond in a worthy manner. Part of that response is to, in a sense, remember the new covenant He inaugurated with His death and resurrection, and which He made you a part of when you came to Him in repentance and belief. But you do not merely remember, you renew the covenant. This is important. You do not gather to enter in as for the first time. You gather to renew the covenant and recommit to your Saviour and Lord with humble, penitent and believing hearts.
Hopefully this will help those of you reading this who grew up in a Christian home and who have always trusted Jesus as your Saviour and Lord. Sometime the gospel and conversion is presented in such a way that you think you have to have a clear moment of conversion. The Bible does not teach that you have to know the moment of conversion. It teaches that you need to know that He is your Saviour and Lord. Think of someone who has a great mom. If you ask their child when they first came to love and trust their mom, they might give you a time, but they are mistaken. They have always loved and trusted their mom. Every Christian parent hopes and prays and acts to the end that their child will never know a time when their child will did not know Jesus as their Saviour and Lord. In a sense, even when they lead their infant in "the sinners prayer", it is an act of recognition of what has always been there, not of beginning. Of course, some children of Christian parents reject the faith. If that is your case, then you need to repent and believe. But if you have always believed and trusted, do not feel guilty, but be filled with gratitude - and every Sunday renew the covenant with Your Lord and Saviour and recommit to Him.
George+
