The word “repentance” has been distorted and turned into a weapon of shame and condemnation. It is time to reclaim the gift that it is…and recognize the depth of lovingkindness and healing it brings.
Reclaiming Repentance
I want to talk to you about repentance. This was an important episode for me to record, because there is a lot of healing and freedom that can come, if we as God’s kids, can reorient ourselves and trust and believe the gift that repentance is.
What comes to your mind when I say the word repentance?
The word repentance conjures such polarizing things. A lot of people have a perception of that word as angry people on a street corner, holding up a sign “Repent, sinner. Turn or burn. You’re going to hell.”
That judgment, old school religious organizational hatred. But that is such a manipulated distortion hijacking of one of the most precious gifts that we have. Repentance is the means through which we are saved. Repentance is the means through which we are reconciled.
When we, as believers, get distracted, fall off course, allow things to stand in the way and distract us, when we come into agreement with the lies of the enemy, or allow things to take God’s rightful place in our hearts and minds, it’s through repentance that we can be restored.
In Romans 2:4, Paul pleads. “Don’t you know? It’s His kindness that leads us to repentance.” It is the depth of God’s love for us that allows us, that invites us to repent. We need to believe that and receive that, but there are some pretty significant walls and barriers in the way for some of us to believe, receive and trust that repentance is a gift, a place of safety.
One of those largely is our understanding of God, our concept of who He is in His character. Because if I look at God as Someone who is not trustworthy, if I look at God as Someone who is angry, as Someone who is waiting to punish me, then I don’t see repentance as this place of safety and restoration. I see repentance as punishment.
And I want to correct and realign us. If there’s anyone listening right now that has been under this weight, maybe there’s something in your life you know you’re supposed to change or shift, but your understanding of God, the Father, or the guilt and shame and condemnation that is upon you has kept you from believing, has kept you like Adam and Eve hiding when God is saying, “Where are you?”
And they’re hiding, even though God knows exactly where they are and they came out and they said, “I hid from You because I was naked. I was afraid. There’s a dangerous trend in the church right now of, rather than heading the voice of the Holy Spirit and the conviction of the Holy Spirit, because of our lack of understanding and our skewed distorted picture of who God, the Father is, we are creating a theology that allows for our sin.
We create something that makes me feel better and justifies this thing, this compromise, whatever it is, that I have come into agreement with. I’m going to create a theology that allows me to stay firmly comfortable here and won’t necessitate my responding to the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
I want us to be set free from those wrong mindsets so that we could lean in and know that God is a place of safety. Repentance is sweet and at times painful, but that pain births freedom. Guilt, shame, and condemnation are from the enemy. Conviction is from the Holy Spirit.
We talk so much about sacred space, we talk so much about intimacy and we talk so much about relational connection with God, healthy, relational connection with God. And this is so critical. If we don’t have a healthy connection to Him, then we are going to run.
If we aren’t in a place where the Holy Spirit is gently bringing conviction and leading us back into His presence, we have isolated ourselves. And if we feel a little bit of conviction, the enemy hijacks that conviction and starts to bring accusation behind it and guilt and shame, which further isolates us and further convinces us that “You don’t deserve to be there. God doesn’t really love you. If they knew what you were thinking. If they really knew what you were about.”
And it separates us and separates us, and further isolates and further isolates. My hope is that we can come into this place of recognizing and understanding first that if I stay in a healthy connection, relationship with Jesus, with God, with the Holy Spirit, that part of that healthy relationship and that loving relationship is the Holy Spirit bringing gentle conviction.
His kindness, tapping us on the shoulder and going, “No, come back.” And our response, because it’s a place of safety, is to turn and go, “Lord, against you and you alone have I sinned.” Psalm 51. Putting ourselves at His mercy, at His feet and allowing Him to gently pick us up and restore us. That is the beauty of repentance.
In the old Testament, you have David who was considered a man after God’s own heart. But this is pre-cross. This is pre-indwelling Holy Spirit. This was under the law. And yet David, somehow, understood and recognized the character of His God, His love, the depth of His grace.
If you look at David and Saul, there’s so much that is similar about them. They were both chosen by God, called by God, both anointed by Samuel. They were both gifted. They both had a tremendous knowledge of the law, tremendously gifted leaders. And yet David ends up being a man after God’s own heart and Saul ends up killing himself.
And if you took a sin scorecard with their two lives, David was probably the worst offender, the way we score things. And yet Saul killed himself and David was a man after God’s own heart. Why? What was the difference? David repented.
David knew his God so much. Trusted his God so much that even when he did the most egregious offense, even when Nathan pointed the finger at him and said, “You are that man.” and the murder and the adultery and everything was exposed. He knew that even in his darkest place, God’s tender love and mercy was there to catch him.
Habakkuk is one of my favorite Old Testament Prophets. He loved and trusted God so much that in the whole First Chapter, he’s arguing with God, he’s talking about these wicked people and how can God let them get away with what they’re getting away with. He’s upset and angry, and then God answers him. And then he spews more anger and frustration.
And then Chapter 2, at the very beginning, it says, “Now I will set myself on the Rampart and wait to see what God says. when He corrects me.” He knew he was going to get corrected. He knew that he was in the wrong.
He knew he had no right to question God, but he also knew who God was and that the character of his God and the goodness of his God was such that he could run off at the mouth and then he could stand up and wait to be corrected and know that that correction is going to come from a place of love, not of anger and judgment.
As believers post-cross, and in-dwelling the Holy Spirit, how much more should we avail ourselves of repentance? I see so many people that I have walked with and counseled, that have things that they don’t want to address. They’ll keep God at arms length and they’ll get so frustrated with why things aren’t going well in their life and why they keep running into the same habitual patterns in their life.
They’re keeping God at arms length and won’t ever allow Him close enough. Won’t ever trust Him enough for His Spirit to move and bring transformation and conviction, and won’t listen and trust Him enough to take the invitation that’s extended.
I personally am so grateful for repentance, for the gift. I could open my journals and read you countless moments where I’ve had to repent where the Holy Spirit has convicted me and said, “You’re not paying attention. You’ve gotten off track.” I’ll share one story.
I’m actually going to expound on this a little bit, when we talk about forgiveness. Several years ago, I was at a conference with a friend. It was a prayer conference and we were there on the second day during worship. And I settled in for worship, had my journal out, and was enjoying my time with the Lord.
And the organizers of the event had sent out their ministry team into the room to pray over people during worship. I was sitting and this man came next to me and put his hand on my shoulder and was praying for me. I never looked up, never saw his face, have no idea to this day who he was.
He was praying for me and he leaned down and he said, “Your relationship with Jesus is really close. I have this picture of it. It’s really precious.” What was interesting, actually at that very moment, right before he said that, I had sketched a picture of me and Jesus, because God gave me this picture of Jesus and me as a little girl and us walking the trails at Torrey Pines, something I used to do when I was a kid.
And he said, “I have this picture of you and Jesus. And it’s this very sweet picture of intimate friendship. But there’s something standing in between you and God, the Father.” And my initial response in my head was “No, there’s not. Bite your tongue.” And then he said, “There are men that have hurt you.”
All of this was going relatively quickly. And in my head, my pride was like, “You don’t know me. I have a great marriage.” I had these presumptions of what he must be interpreting. Then he leaned down and he’s like, “There are men that have hurt you and you need to forgive them.”
Not as fast as I rattled off in my head, “I have a great marriage. There’s no men in my life that have hurt me.” Names started flooding into my heart, mind. And they were male leaders I’d had in church, pastors and people that I had worked for and worked with that had done some things that had left scars and marks.
And immediately the Holy Spirit confirmed that “There’s pain there that you’ve got to forgive and you need to repent and you need to walk away from that.” I sat there and started writing down names and started forgiving these people and starting to repent for holding on to bitterness and resentment and offense.
And as I wrote those names, I felt freedom, these weights, stuff that I couldn’t even identify before. I didn’t recognize the toll that my heart was holding onto, the toll it was taking for my heart to hold onto these different offenses and difficult things. We’re going to talk more about forgiveness in another episode.
And please hear me, I’m not belittling pain that’s been inflicted or saying that in any way, justifies things that maybe have been very harmful to you. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about taking ownership of how we respond to things and what we do with our pain and allowing that relationship with God to be so close, that when He whispers to us, we can respond and we can hand Him those things that are the most vulnerable.
We can trust Him to bring healing and restoration and freedom. Sit with the Lord and invite the Holy Spirit in and ask Him, “Have I held You at arm’s length? Holy Spirit, have I not been willing to listen and repent?”
Say, “Lord, forgive me. Forgive me for not having ears to hear. Lord, I confess that I have kept You at a safe distance, but that’s deception. To keep You away isn’t safe, it is actually harmful. Lord, I want to remove that barrier and I want to invite You close. I want to give You permission, Holy Spirit, to speak truth to my heart.”
I pray right now for healing and freedom. God, would You set the captives free? Would You bring restoration and healing in those areas where we have not trusted You? Lord, would You forgive us? Would You correct our picture of who You are?
Father, I pray for healing for those that have walked in fear of You. Lord, would You reveal Your loving kindness. God, would You help us to reclaim repentance as the gift it truly is? We ask this in Your name. Amen.
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