Defining Repentance

[Guest Yakuza]

Repent means 2 not only ask for forgiveness but also 2 live in a way that shows u will not continue to live in sin

[mizzdy]

no longer do we need the OT laws, ceremonies, feasts and such to remind us about God

giving us a fleshly heart with the laws of God written on it a heart that can feel after the heart of God.

There is a disconnect from logic in that position. We don't need God's instruction anymore?

If we don't need it then wouldn't it be erased instead of written on our heart?

Rather it seems, you are making a leap from logic to assumption. OC has not said we dont need Gods law (love) but that the foreshadows of things to come are now no longer needed as reminders since Christ has now come and the Holy Spirit given to all who will believe.

The Holy Spirit tells us when we are not being loving, and these instructions when recieved are now written on the heart. Does the person who obeys from the heart need laws and cerimonies to do what they already love to do?

Agreed that love is the most important aspect of God and His ways. Yet what are you obeying from the heart and what is it that 'they already love to do'? most humans even with love in their hearts still do not know how to obey God or what they need to obey. Can you tell me about from Gods instructions we are to obey and love to obey? God gave instructions to us to learn to lead the good and righteous life we have in Him and it is those law or instructions that are being written on our hearts and the reason He uses the heart instead of following the 'laws written on stone' is that we are to give it to Him to mold into someone who can be His and used for His purposes. If His instructions are no longer needed we would be in the kingdom right now and so far what I see doesn't cut it. When will people realize Gods instructions are a set of rules that one must ritually follow, its not a list of 'you must do or else you burn in hell'. I personally need Gods instructions in my life, I need that leading of the Spirit daily I would be lost without God and His Spirit in my life, and that is why like David I call all of His Torah a delight and a lamp unto my feet.

[Guest yod]

='JCISGD'

Rather it seems, you are making a leap from logic to assumption.

If I got the wrong idea, then I apologize in advance but words means things. If he's saying we "don't need" every Word of God (including the Law or Feasts) to know Him, then he's going down a slippery slope...and I would like him to clarify his point.

You can presume to know everything about God because you're just so dang holy...but why not consume ALL of His Words diligently to know His ways (and do them) ? That isn't the same as studying someone else who studied His Word, and studying theology can never satisfy us like knowing Him better will do. King David said that God's Law was like honey to his lips. King Solomon said it made the foolish wise. Yeshua said man will live by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God. Why don't we "need" some of this if they did?

OC has not said we dont need Gods law (love) but that the foreshadows of things to come are now no longer needed as reminders since Christ has now come and the Holy Spirit given to all who will believe.

There, you equated God's law with love. And it is.

But you really have no idea what the Feasts are about, if you think they were given only pertaining to one's personal salvation. If you would live on His calendar for a few seasons, you'd be surprised how something so simple would give deep insight into the One who sets the seasons to meet with us.

Not that you have to...but I have never understood why someone who calls themselves a christian is so afraid of meeting God at a time HE appointed instead a church in Rome or Germany or even themselves. But until you do, you should be careful about criticizing what you know nothing about.

The Holy Spirit tells us when we are not being loving, and these instructions when recieved are now written on the heart. Does the person who obeys from the heart need laws and cerimonies to do what they already love to do?

Shall every man be a law unto himself?

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Why would the Law be written on your heart if the Law is so irrelevant, according to the original post I responded to and which you are defending?

It is true that if we serve others in humility with His kind of sacrificial love, that it would be impossible to break the Law, even if one had never studied to know it. We would be keeping the spirit of the Law apart from knowing the letter of it, much like what Paul speaks about gentiles who had received the Spirit of Holiness. Yet that must be balanced with the fact that they (the Jewish Apostles who established New Covenant faith) went on to teach the gentiles the foundational truths found only in the Law.

There are areas where we need to apply His wisdom and counsel instead of our own "heart". Why would any christian be against consulting the standard He has provided?

Remember...there was no such thing as new covenant scriptures when Paul said these words to Timothy

2 Timothy 3:15-17 (New International Version, ©2010)

15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The comment about "laws and ceremonies" is answered today just like it would have been in Moses' time. What is not done in faith is pointless ritual.

[traveller]

Anyone can "repent." I'ts simply means turning away from something. Take the non-believer, who decided it was wrong to break into peoples homes. He repented of that wrongdoing. Yet, perhaps he continued to cheat on his tax return, to lie to his family, to do a myriad of other things that we, as Christians, know is sin but nonbelievers think is harmless. Repentance in the word means not merely to stop doing something wrong, but to change your path altogether - to walk in the Way, after Christ, to be in His will. It means to throw off the old man, all of the old ways, to take up your cross and follow Him. It means that we die to the flesh and the desires thereof, and not just because we don't want to do bad things anymore, but because we desire Christ.

True repentance changes our focus, and, like a rudder on a ship, when our focus is changed so is our direction.

[Openly Curious]

name='yod' timestamp='1297265964' post='1647734']

name=Openly Curious' timestamp='1297202888' post='1647489

no longer do we need the OT laws, ceremonies, feasts and such to remind us about God

giving us a fleshly heart with the laws of God written on it a heart that can feel after the heart of God.

There is a disconnect from logic in that position. We don't need God's "instructions" anymore?

Well that is an interesting expression, "a disconnect from logic" I thought that, that was what "faith" was all about. I never said that we don't need God's instuctions{laws} anymore but instead I said, the laws were now written on the tablets of our heart no longer in tablets of stone that God wrote with his own finger and Moses recorded them down . We would not know what the laws of God were had not been for Moses who wrote them on paper

If we don't need it then wouldn't it be erased instead of written on our heart?

The law was our schoolmaster to bring us TO Christ. BUT after that faith is come, we are "NO" longer under a schoolmaster (Galatians 3:22-27) You say, that words do have meaning well it is my hope these words in Galations will have meaning.

It is God who does the work inside of our hearts for he hath "removed" our sins as far as the east to the west. Though your sins be as scarlet I will make them white as snow. I just look at your comment as a play on words and that is IMO from what you've said it really doesn't make any sense to me maybe you could clarify a little bit more.

For God does give those who have repented of their sins as the OT prophets foretold to us about this. God himself said that He would take away our stony heart and in it's place he would give us a heart of flesh. Having a stony heart is simply being "cold" it's a heart that is incapable of having feelings of love for example agape love. This is how we are before salvation and the work that God's will do within a truly repentant heart.

Ezekiel 11:19--And I will give them "one" heart, and will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:

God says he'd give them a heart that wasn't divided and that he would take away their stony heart a heart that is stubborn he'd take it out and and in it's place God would give them an heart of flesh a tender heart one that could feel after.

Ezekiel 36:26--A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh , and I will give you an heart of flesh.

Again God said, I will give a new heart and put a new spirit and I will "take away" the "stony heart," out of your "flesh." The promise of the grace of God to fit "us" for "our" duty should quicken our hearts.

Ephesians 2:1-10--AND YOU hath he "quickened," who were dead in trespasses and sins;.................

Repentance,= the old passes away and BEHOLD all things become new.

[Matt712]

The actual word 'Repent' has it's roots in greek. It means in the literal sense to turn 180 degrees, completely about, to face the opposite direction. For christians it means much more than that. We are expected to maintain repentance, in that once we have turned from sin, we should not turn back to it. It is not nearly enough for me, therefore, to simply repent and be done with it. I must seek new and more wholesome activities to fill my time or I will undoubtedly 'repent' again, right back to sin. That is why many people say 'repent your sins' (turn and face away from your sins) instead of merely 'repent'. I know that seems like a silly technicality, but it is helpful to me to know the intent of what is said in scripture. To maintain a state of repentance from sin is one step in the journey. It does not make us holy exactly. It just reduces the temptation to turn completely from God, in favor of the pleasures of the earth.

[Openly Curious]

no longer do we need the OT laws, ceremonies, feasts and such to remind us about God

giving us a fleshly heart with the laws of God written on it a heart that can feel after the heart of God.

There is a disconnect from logic in that position. We don't need God's instruction anymore?

If we don't need it then wouldn't it be erased instead of written on our heart?

Rather it seems, you are making a leap from logic to assumption. OC has not said we don't need God's law (love) but that the foreshadows of things to come are now no longer needed as reminders since Christ has now come and the Holy Spirit given to all who will believe..

The Holy Spirit tells us when we are not being loving, and these instructions when recieved are now written on the heart. Does the person who obeys from the heart need laws and cerimonies to do what they already love to do?

You are correct -JCISGD- in what I was saying all along.

[Guest yod]

Does the person who obeys from the heart need laws and cerimonies to do what they already love to do?

You are correct -JCISGD- in what I was saying all along.

ok then....let's explore this philosophy.

Is it possible for the Holy Spirit to contradict the Father or the Son?

[mizzdy]

Rather it seems, you are making a leap from logic to assumption. OC has not said we don't need God's law (love) but that the foreshadows of things to come are now no longer needed as reminders since Christ has now come and the Holy Spirit given to all who will believe..

The Holy Spirit tells us when we are not being loving, and these instructions when recieved are now written on the heart. Does the person who obeys from the heart need laws and cerimonies to do what they already love to do?

Everyone needs Gods instructions, those instructions are His laws or Torah. How can one obey without instructions, if as you say we do what we already love then that 'do what they already love to do' needs to be defined. After repentance when our hearts become new to Him what does He write on it?

All those verses about being given a new fleshly heart refers to the covenant, renewed now in the heart and not on stone, same laws, same words that came out of His mouth to start with, they are not free floating ideas of how we can love but concrete ways in which God teaches us to love. How are we to love God? if we go to scriptures we find several times where God and Yeshua say "if you love me you will keep my commandments' how do we do this without His commandments which show Him we love Him. The Spirit is not separate from God does not have a mind separate from God just as the Messiah said He came to teach and say only the words of the Father. To say we no longer need written laws or written directions is not what God said, we are told to search the scriptures daily, even if we have the Spirit leading us the things He is leading us to is the written word where all of Gods instructions are there for us to learn of also. We read the written word and the Spirit teaches us from it.

God certainly is writing His Torah on our hearts but we still need His written word but we need to work it out also, we need to put into practice those things God shows us, we are to walk out our faith just as Abraham walked out his after all Abraham kept Gods Torah before Sinai. Faith is walking in the understanding that God keeps His promises and I believe are response to Him is to be faithful and walk in His ways, we cannot walk in His Torah if its all bottled up in the heart where no one sees it. Believe me I know many who do this, believing His feasts, His set apart days are only observed in the heart because thats where the Spirit is and what the Spirit is teaching yet not one spark of light shows through simply because the only show of faith they have is by saying its in their heart and thats all that counts. (not speaking of anyone here) We are called to be set apart, we are called to let our faith, our 'works' our whole walk is to show others also His light, to be the fruit of the vine to show others Gods blessings, His grace and goodness.

[Guest Butero]

What does it mean to repent? I was taught that 'metanoia' means to change the mind about your sins. In other words, to agree with God that our sins are wicked and evil and the cause of all misery in the world. Repentance does not mean that there are no consequences to sin in this world. Repentance appears to mean that a heart-condition occurs in the which we realize that our sins are what brought Christ here to suffer and die on our behalf and that we should be active in controlling our flesh in both mind and body to prevent continual sinning.

If anyone has anything else to add, feel free.

According to the Greek Dictionary, the word repent means to think differently or afterwards, i.e. reconsider (mor. feel compunction): repent. It comes from the Greek word metanoeo.

According to Webster's Dictionary, the word repent means to feel sorry, self-reproachful, or contrite for past conduct; regret or be conscience-stricken about a past action, attitude, etc. It also means to feel such sorrow for sin or fault as to be disposed to change one's life for the better; be penitent.