What Repentance REALLY is
TL;DR Summary: Focus on the finished work of Jesus and not the false gospel of maintaining right standing with God through effort or works. Embrace the real gospel: Jesus completed everything, and our salvation and God's love are not dependent on our actions. Repentance is about changing your mind to believe in Jesus' finished work and grace, not about endless self-effort. Read more to understand the freedom and rest in accepting what Jesus has done for us.
Here’s another Reel I saw and I had to post it. If you’re stuck, constantly repenting, then it’s time to break that cycle… now.
I used to believe a false gospel and I’m going to explain to you the difference between a false gospel and a real one.
So what makes a gospel false? So one of the easiest ways to describe false gospels is this. Anything that makes you think that you can maintain right standing with God, whether it’s obvious or subtle, and it can be really subtle. You can also identify a false gospel if there’s conditions other than trusting in the finished work of Jesus to be saved.
So for me it looked kind of like this, believing that my salvation depended on me constantly repenting, confessing, and turning away from every sin just to stay in right standing with God. Or believing God’s love for me went up and down on this scale based upon how well I performed. If I prayed enough, fasted enough, stayed in right standing, read the scriptures enough, maybe he’d be pleased.
Even subtle thoughts like, “I messed up today so God must be distant from me.” It all boiled down to one thing, thinking that my salvation and even his love had to be maintained by my effort or something that I could do. That’s performance, that’s works, that’s what I call the orphan mindset.
But the real gospel is this, it is finished. Jesus didn’t just get me started, he finished it. He’s the author and the finisher of my faith. He will complete the work that he began with me and that’s not dependent on me. My only job is to trust him.
My right standing with God doesn’t depend on my grip on him, but it’s his grip on me.
And repentance. I used to think repentance meant turning away from sin and then continuing to repent again and again for every screw-up, like a treadmill I could never get off. But real repentance is not like that at all. It’s not about endlessly trying harder and then repenting whenever you fall short or you screw up. [Repentance is] about changing your mind. It’s about turning from unbelief to believing in Jesus and his finished work.
That means when I fall short, I don’t spiral back into fear, guilt, shame, condemnation, and then get back in right standing by repenting. I just remind myself it’s already paid for past, present, and future. There’s no applying the blood of Jesus again. Repentance is me agreeing with the truth that I am forgiven, I am his, and my whole life is covered by the blood of Jesus until I leave this life.
The false gospel says do more, try harder, maintain right standing, make him pleased with you. But the real gospel says it’s finished. You are already accepted as my son or daughter. Now live from that rest, live from his love. That’s the difference between fear and freedom, between striving and sonship, and that’s the gospel that I believe now.
I love that. It’s so hard for us to get that what Jesus did finished everything. It’s done. Over. He took care of it. We just need to accept it. That’s the GOOD NEWS. It’s not that we have to do anything. It’s done. Repentance is changing your mind to remind yourself of this – of how great Jesus is… God’s grace – his graciousness to us.