Copyright by Shea Oakley
All rights reserved
The greatest aid to our ongoing ability to repent from transgression against God is found in coming to the knowledge that He does not love us less, nor withhold His faithfulness to us, despite the fact that we have not yet repented. It is, as the Bible tells us, His kindness that leads us towards repentance.
It is impossible to sincerely repent of transgression apart from a heart knowledge that God loves us even when we sin. Those who struggle with the idea that divine love is conditional find it difficult, if not impossible, to sincerely and completely turn from any given sin. In fact the faulty belief that our Father only loves us when we are practicing right behavior eventually leads to an anger and frustration that is the very opposite of repentance.
We are most truly sorry for transgressing God’s perfect law when we get some inkling of His true feelings towards us, and those feelings are ones of love. We know this from the testimony of countless verses of Scripture and from the reality of what happened on the cross. In Jesus Christ we see the Lord of the Universe giving up the most precious thing He has, His only Son, for a people who were yet in their sin. In doing so He proved once and for all that His love for humanity does not depend on our moral perfection. In fact it does not depend on us at all. It depends on Him. The love of Christ originates in the very heart of God and is both unconditional and inexhaustible. It depends on the Source of love, not the actions of the objects of that love.
When we are caught up in such a love as this we are in the best place to be as far as real repentance. It is in the gentle touch of a God who loves us despite ourselves that our hearts are most likely to be pricked by a sincere desire to please Him. Doing right thus becomes a function of becoming right which is itself, a function of receiving the transforming love of our Lord. As we embrace and receive more and more of God’s love, grace and faithfulness towards our selves we can begin to “naturally” desire to turn from all known sin.
In the New Testament every instance of apparent individual repentance comes about as a result of Jesus taking the initiative to love the person involved, whether through a miraculous healing, deliverance, or just by not judging them as they expect to be judged. In each case Jesus loves unconditionally first and this is followed by genuine contrition on the part of whoever he is unconditionally loving.
I submit that this is always the pattern of true repentance. It starts with God loving us, in and despite our sin, and ends with us thankfully turning from that sin for the sake of such love.