Repentance - what is it? Where does it come from?

Could You Stand The Seven?

For most of your life you had battled a spirit of addiction. It had manifested itself in the form of pornography addiction. You had followed that spirit wherever it led you…into adult bookstores and theatres, into the world of illicit thought, into a relationship with that lying spirit that helped you cover your tracks, or so you had thought. (read more...)

How much have you cost your employer by calling in sick, when your only sickness was your online porn addiction? How many days of work have you missed just because you were driven to stay home to view porn instead?

Nothing is more important...

...in the process of healing for the porn addict! But we sometimes get our view of repentance out of line. For the average person, repentance is a recurring event where they say to God, "I'm sorry. I won't do that again," but without a change in their heart. Repentance is much more than that. It is an attitude of the heart that says, "God, I'm tired of this. I'm tired of living a life that is not pleasing to you. I'm tired of living my life in a way that dishonors You. I am going to change - forever!" Turning around in the mind is not enough.

The Word says that as we are in our hearts, so are we. A repentant heart is a heart that is sick of the same old same old. It is a heart that longs for a life of purity, even if you may not know how to get there. It is a heart that realizes that much more has happened in life as a result of the sins of the past than you can name, but you are truly sorry for anyway. It is a heart that hurts when God's best for you is violated.

A repentant heart is something that you can't just conjure up with sheer will power. Will power comes from the mind. True repentance comes from the heart. It is placed in the heart by God Himself. II Timothy 2:25-26 says, "...in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will." Notice again His reason for granting repentance. "...that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will."

The part that I didn't understand for many years was that God will grant us a repentant heart if we ask Him. We often (or usually) think that it is up to us to develop a repentant heart, then do the repenting, then come to the Lord to ask for forgiveness. But this passage indicates that such is not always the case. Notice the progression of events in the verses:

God grants them repentance. Ask Him for a repentant heart. Whatever He offers in His Word, we can ask for.

They learn what the truth is concerning their situation. Until God gave me a repentant heart, I could not see the extent of my addiction, how to get out of it, what it was truly doing to my family, etc.

They come to their senses. When we are in our right mind, we are much more capable of making decisions that will be productive. We are much more capable of hearing when the Lord speaks to us. We are much more capable of hearing the cries of our spouses and other family members.

They escape the snare of the devil - they change from the wrong road to the right one. Our desires and behavior change to such an extent that we no longer want on the old road. There is no longer anything there that is comforting to us or that has the ability to draw us without our thinking first.

Take a few moments to quietly look inside yourself. Consider what you just read, then ask yourself, "Have I ever really and truly - all the way to my bones - repented? Or have I just been going through the motions?" An honest answer might surprise you. Ask God to grant you a repentant heart, a heart that yearns to be the man He created you to be - a man of honor, integrity, and purity.

Could You Stand The Seven?

Repentance...

Nothing is more important...