“Repent” is not a Christian cuss word? Christian faith highly recommends repentance.
Did I forget to tell you that repentance is a GOOD thing?
I look around and see people avoiding repentance like the plague. Seems like they will do anything to avoid taking responsibility for a mistake. Deflecting, scapegoating and blaming others is now, apparently, the way people think we are supposed to deal with things. I understand the impulse…but am really concerned when Christian people take those dodges.
So I am wondering, dear Christian friends that I have served, did I forget to tell you that Christian faith admires, recommends, encourages and blesses repentance, self-reflection and listening to others who speak the truth in love? If this theme was a sermon I preached once in 47 years, you might well have missed it. But that is a sermon that I would swear I preached more times than I can count.
Repentance and reflection is a model I have tried to live out in my personal life. Every night as part of my devotional practice, I build in time to reflect and repent and learn what I could have done better. On the first day of every month, I block off time to reflect and repent and periodically through the year, I take retreat time to reflect, repent and renew. I do not mind saying, “I am sorry.” I welcome the wisdom and healing that repentance can bring. Embracing reflection and repentance has made me a better Christian.
When people refuse to repent, they miss one of life’s most important opportunities: the chance to learn from mistakes. Anyone who thinks they never made mistakes is self-deceived and “the truth is not in them” as 1 John so bluntly says. Anyone who is adamant about not admitting a mistake is in real spiritual trouble. Those who can’t admit they made mistakes inevitably make the same hurtful mistakes over and over again.
And yet, people seem determined to avoid self-reflection, taking responsibility or admitting mistakes at all costs--even if it means lashing out against other people who had nothing to do with the mistake or criticizing people who are trying to help. The “but what-about….” Syndrome pointing to others has become a spiritual pandemic of its own. Not only do people make mistakes. They get entrenched in those mistakes. And they proudly support other people who adamantly refuse to take responsibility. That’s double the sin.
I understand when unbelievers do that. But it is really wrenching to me when practicing Christian believers follow the repentance resistant path. Did preachers and Sunday School teachers and Christian friends fail to tell them that repentance is essential to the God-aligned life? Did we forget to tell you that repentance is the way of freedom to be embraced?
Blaming others is as old as Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. The message of faith throughout time is that we stand in the eyes of God’s judgment for our actions. Adam was not absolved of eating of the tree because he blamed Eve. And yes, Cain, you are your brother’s keeper.
When we are spiritually healthy, we welcome the chance to repent, to learn from our mistakes.
When our churches are spiritually healthy, we instinctively and without reluctance turn to repentance to learn how we can do better.
When our nation is healthy and true to its lofty principles, we are grateful to learn from our mistakes so we can stop our mistakes and move closer to our ideals.
Repentance is not something to avoid like the plague. It is a gift of a better life, healed relationships, new insights and a fresh start.
When individuals lash out at the idea that they need to repent; when they are defensive about missteps – even indefensible missteps; when they deny that they used ill-advised words (even when the statement is on video tape), people only become more entrenched in the quicksand of sin. They never reach the door to freedom and redemption. When people deflect by blaming others, when their energy goes toward criticism of others, they are in a destructive and heart-rending state of spiritual trouble. Our church and our world is permeated by this heartache.
Friends, if I forgot to say it before, let’s be sure that you hear this message from me as clearly as I can say it: Christians are GRATEFUL for the chance to repent. Our Christian faith is a continuous cycle of action and reflection and repentance and new starts.
You take repentance out of the mix and we are a mess of sin that just gets worse and worse as we are more and more braggadocious that we don’t need to repent. The road away from repentance is spiritually treacherous.
Repentance is our home spiritual base. We should embrace the wisdom repentance brings and the new start that is possible. Repentance is a sign of maturity. We should repent privately to God and publicly to others. If I forgot to tell you that repenting is an opportunity we cherish, I am stating it now.
We are all imperfect people, every one of us.
Repenting of our own sin is critical to a healthy spiritual life. We don’t help ourselves or others by deflecting, blaming, avoiding. If I forgot to tell you that repenting is something we welcome, then I repent J People who don’t/won’t repent and rethink are on a path of spiritual deterioration. In his classic psalm of repentace (Psalm 51), the Psalmist sees the healing beauty that repentance alone brings: “Create in me a clean heart, O God. And renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10)
Repentance. I highly commend it.
