Believer's Repentance (say what?)

Repentance is a word that most people are familiar with, however, many people have the wrong understanding of what repentance means. Many people believe that repentance means "to be sorry for something", but that is not what repentance means at all. That feeling sorry for something is what leads you to repentance. Repentance means to make a complete change of direction. To stop doing one thing and start doing another. It's to turn completely from one course of action to another. Repentance is not a feeling, but a complete change of direction.

When most people think of repentance, they think about the sinner turning from his ungodly ways to God's ways and thank God that He has made a way for man to be born again so that he can live his life according to God's way. However, God has another use for repentance.

The Holy Spirit wants to speak to us today about the "Believer's Repentance". The term itself is hard to receive because it doesn't fit into our understanding of repentance, but there is a time and a need for a believer to repent and that is God's message for us today.

When must a Believer repent? You say," when he sins", but God does not require the believer to repent. God has declared His truth about this matter in 1 John 1:9. When the believer sins, the believer must confess his sin before God, and then the believer must receive his forgiveness from God by faith and be restored to his right place before God (or the direction he was heading before he sinned). The Believer has already turned away from death when he was born again, and has now been moving towards God and His ways. That sin (the Believer committed) has not taken the Believer off his course towards God, but it has parked him along the side of the divine highway in a broken down condition and that Believer needs to be fixed so that he can continue his journey with God, and that is done according to 1 John 1:7-9.

So the question is again, when must the Believer repent? The answer is when the Believer is believing something wrong about God and His Word, then there is need of repentance by the Believer so as to be able to receive the Truth of God's way and then turn and go that way.

The Word of God declares to us 1 John 4 about the spirit of error and the Spirit of Truth. The Believer can hear things taught about the Word that comes from the spirit of error (to clear up any confusion about the spirit of error, this is the spirit of the Believer's enemy- satan lying or distorting the Truth). The Believer receives this error as Truth and he sincerely believes it, but he is sincerely wrong in what he believes.

Jesus had much to say to those that had a zeal for God (Rom 10:1-3), but who understood wrongly about Him. Jesus said in Matt 22:29, "You are mistaken, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God". He also said in Matt 15:6, "thus you have made the commandment (the Word) of God of no effect by your tradition".

So is it possible for the Believer to believe wrongly? Yes! A thousand times "Yes"! If this is true then there is need for the Believer to repent from the spirit of error and turn towards the Spirit of Truth and follow Him.

How do you know as a Believer that you are following the Spirit of Truth? Only one way! You must think just like Jesus thinks. Jesus is the Truth (John 14:6) and if the Believer will think like Jesus and do the things that Jesus did (and still does), then he is being led by the Spirit of Truth. The Holy Spirit said through the Apostle Paul in Phil 2:5, "Let (that means you permit it to be so) this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus". Then the scripture goes on and tells us how we should think if we are going to think like Jesus did (and still does).

The Believer is given many opportunities by the enemy (the spirit of error) to believe wrongly, because there are many voices in the land that speak wrongly about God and His ways. That is why the Believer must take everything he hears about God, then go to the Word and have the Holy Spirit confirm the Word that he has heard as either error or Truth (this is why I go to great effort to give you scripture references when I unwrap the truth that the Holy Spirit
has given me). We the Believers are responsible to seek after the Truth and then follow it by doing it, no matter how many might disagree with us or turn us away.

If you are believing something wrong about God today, the Holy Spirit will reveal the Truth to you (1 Cor 2:9-12, everybody knows verse 9 and uses it as an excuse for not knowing the Truth, but few read on and receive the Truth in verses 10-12). What are you going to do with that Truth? Repent or continue believing wrongly? The choice is yours, but know that God is calling you to the Truth. That's what I want, and that is why I am quick to repent when I've believed something wrongly, so that the Truth becomes my way of life and I pray that it becomes yours as well.

Read 2 Peter 3:14-18 to allow the Holy Spirit to seal this Truth into your heart. Be determined to know the Truth for Jesus said "it will make you free". (John 8:30-32)