How do you

[Jesusispeace]

Properly repent?

[Jayne]

Good question!

Let me tell first what it does NOT mean.  It does not mean to feel bad for your sins or to be sorry for you sins or to feel like you've been a lousy human being.  Those feelings can be real conviction or they can be human guilty consciences or can be the result of too much late night pizza, indigestion, and gas.

Repenting is not feeling bad.  Judas felt HORRIBLE to the point of suicide.  Judas NEVER repented.

The Bible says worldly sorrow does nothing.  It says Godly sorrow LEADS TO repentance.  Lots of people in the Bible met Jesus and felt bad about their actions but did not change.

The actual word, the Greek word for repentance, is "metanoeo" [in English letters].  It's a compound word like football or scorecard.  It's made up of two Greek words "meta" and "noeo".

•  meta - a preposition that means sort of afterward or across or some kind of transitioning.
•  noeo - it means exercising your mind somehow as in pondering or thinking or making a decision based on great thought

The word repent, in and of itself, mean to "change your mind" about something.  Changing your mind to the point you make a decision TO change.

So, to answer your question - how to properly repent.

•  admit to yourself that you are indeed vile and foul before a holy God - even if never murdered or raped or hurt anyone or stole - it's not the sins that make us unholy, it's our nature of just being a sinner that separates us from God.  Therefore - a person who doesn't "look" like a sinner is still a sinner due to his/her nature TO sin.  The gravity of the sin in terms of human consequence is not important to the fact that sin still has you enslaved.  Murder or lie.  Steal $10 from petty cash or rape a child.  Sin is sin.  Consequences are different but not the matter of sin being evil before God.

 

•  confess to God that you are a sinner and confess your sins to him and him alone - you don't have to give a public "testimony" of all your sins to an open crowd

 

•  NOW, here comes the repent part!!
  •  change your mind about how you live each day
  •  purposefully live for Christ
  •  make a thoughtful and rational and active decision to turn around and away from sin and walk in righteousness

That's about it.  It's not rocket science.  When we change our minds about things - our behaviors, attitudes, and mindsets change accordingly.  If a person changes their mind about eating too many carbs or fats, they change their eating habits.  Another person may grieve because they know they eat badly and feel really bad about it, but they haven't changed their minds about it.  They continue to eat to bodily endangerment.

To repent is to change one's mind and consequently, one's behavior naturally changes with the mindset change.

 

 

Edited August 7, 2019 by Jayne

[Jostler]

On 8/7/2019 at 12:15 PM, Jesusispeace said:

Properly repent?

by choosing to.  Repentance is an act of the will.   A choice. 

[Prycejosh1987]

On 8/7/2019 at 8:15 PM, Jesusispeace said:

Properly repent?

You have to have the desire to want to change and take baby steps to changing what is an issue. We will always struggle with sin, but persist and one day you will breakthrough.