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The Repentance Issue::: revisited


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From my hubby: Faith and repentance go hand in hand. They are two sides of the same coin, true faith implies repentance and vice versa. They come together as gifts from God.
PS..I agree with him. :mrgreen:


Me too, I agree with him. :mrgreen:

I.E. First God draws us, then we cry out in desperation to Him. At that point He reaches out to us and grants us His very Divine Gifts of Faith and the power/authority/ability to Repent on His terms.
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getting what from? That repentance is from God?


I think he wants documentation to back up my premise that true repentance isn't complete until it comes as a divine gift from God, Himself. I know there are oodles of Bible verses for it, but just need to do the research. :D

It's just as you have said, Matie-k, that true repentance and saving faith are back to back on the same coin. I maintain that the little bit of faith that we have when we call out to God, He sees, receives and then grants us a Gift of His unmerited Favor, (i.e. His Grace). This Gift of His Grace includes within it His power and authority that He extends to us to enable us to make the break from Satan. We simply cannot break-away on our own. This breaking away IS repentance. It's an about face to leave Satan and sinning and run into the outstretched arms of the LORD.

I see an identical principle with our prayers. When we pray to the Father the Holy Spirit carries those prayers, translates them into groanings that cannot be uttered (by us) and presents them to the Father.

This is what the Evangelist was describing that particular Sunday, and it just clicked with me and made good common sense.

We have to remember that we are not forbidden from God to use good common sense that is based on sound logic. It's just like smoking or any usage of tobacco at all, card playing (with the set of King, Queen, Jack, Joker, Ace, and numbers 2 thru 9), and dancing being sins. There aren't any verses that say, "Thou shalt not use tobacco!", "Thou shalt not play with those cards!", or "Thou shalt not dance!" However, Isn't it obvious????
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I have a question about repentance. Do you believe you can turn to God and ask Him to save you but in the back of your mind you're thinking about some sin that you'd hate to give up? I ask because we had a man at my old church who came forward and wanted to be saved but said he didn't want to give up alcohol. The associate pastor told him that you had to be willing to give up the alcohol before he could repent and be saved. The pastor later told him that he could just ask to be saved and God would help him deal with the alcohol. The associate pastor ended up leaving but it has always caused me confusion. It seems that if you really want to be saved that God will save you and help you deal with sin. If I can make myself not want to sin then why would I need Christ?

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Repentance isn't giving up a sin - that is moral reformation - and God doesn't ask that before we come to Him for salvation. What He does ask is that we change our minds about our sin and that we turn from it in our hearts. Yes, it may take a little while for us to get that sinful habit, etc. out of our lives, but now we have changed our mind about that sin and no longer desire it like we did before. Now there is a struggle against it.

If someone has a specific sin they are dealing with when presented with the Gospel, and they consciously refuse to turn from it in their heart, then they cannot be saved (at that point in time), as they are NOT repentant. The Bible teaches repentance and faith are both necessary for salvation.

John 3:19-21 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

Referring to the Tribulation period, but the principle is the same (ie. that men are not saved when they are unwilling to turn from their sin):

2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Drunkeness is specifically mentioned as one of the sins that keeps people from receiving God's gift of salvation in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. Praise the Lord that if they repent of the sin and receive the Saviour, He can cleanse them from that sinful way of life.

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I have been gathering information for quite some time now on all the aspects of salvation and how one gets saved, with special attention to the Call from God all the way to the sinner's response to receive or reject.

Here is something on repentance that I just heard yesterday from a visiting speaker to our church. Very interesting is the fact that we can learn new things everyday especially when we think we have all the details fully understood. :)

When God draws a sinner to Himself for salvation, that sinner has the opportunity to reject or accept the offer from the LORD. This is the sinner's free-will. In order to receive the gift of salvation, the sinner must first confess to God that he is indeed undone in God's sight. This confession is simply "Saying the same thing" as God does about his lost condition.

At this point, repentance must come next. One particular school of thought teaches that repentance was something that the unregenerate sinner did of his own free-will, but that is simply not the case at all. Repentance is a Gift from God that enables the sinner to make a clean break-away from Satan who has him tightly grasped in devilish clutches. No mortal being is a match for the devil and God knows that fully well. It is for this very reason that the LORD must step in and grant power and authority to the one desiring to repent to do it.

I'm still gathering scripture verses on this.


P-E

We Agree!

I like ryme.
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I think salvation is "turning from sin to Christ" but some carry repentance so far that you have to be sorry for every single sin, or give up every single sin...and that can cause people to doubt their salvation...i.e: "What if I wasn't repentant enough?"


:goodpost:

Repentance to the point of works-based salvation really frustrates me when I hear it. I like to look at repentance as a part of salvation, not a pre-requisite like some people make it sound like. Is repentance first, and then forgiveness? Or forgiveness first, and then repentance?

The way I look at it, neither. They are both instantaneous. You must turn your mind from sin (notice you aren't necessarily turning from sin [becoming self-righteous or cleaning yourself up first], but instead, changing the way you think about sin) and look toward Christ as the one and only way to the forgiveness from the punishment of that sin. How else can we trust in Christ without repentance! There must be a change! Then God will work in your life and clean you up. But that's no guarantee that anyone will live sinless or that anyone will be invincible from the temptation or falling into the sins of the past.

I'm sure most of us all believe the same exact thing, but just have different ways of explaining it. It's so hard to understand how God forgives us that sometimes our words just don't do it justice. :thumb
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Kitagrl wrote:
I think salvation is "turning from sin to Christ" but some carry repentance so far that you have to be sorry for every single sin, or give up every single sin...and that can cause people to doubt their salvation...i.e: "What if I wasn't repentant enough?"


yes, I noticed that too.


Anyway, The way I look at it is repenting of pride which in my opinion is the same as sins. If you have too much pride (pride can come in all kinds of form), it makes it harder for you to turn to God and let him work with you. It is like this: A person sees there is nothing wrong with white lies and thinks God doesn't mind because it involves not hurting the other person's feelings. That person have just made up what kind of a god he want so he doesn't have to change his ways. Once you realized that your ways is not God's ways, and repenting for ever thinking such that way, It becomes easy for you to grow in Christ, even if you make mistakes along the way.
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yes, I noticed that too.


Anyway, The way I look at it is repenting of pride which in my opinion is the same as sins. If you have too much pride (pride can come in all kinds of form), it makes it harder for you to turn to God and let him work with you. It is like this: A person sees there is nothing wrong with white lies and thinks God doesn't mind because it involves not hurting the other person's feelings. That person have just made up what kind of a god he want so he doesn't have to change his ways. Once you realized that your ways is not God's ways, and repenting for ever thinking such that way, It becomes easy for you to grow in Christ, even if you make mistakes along the way.


Amen Angie! Many do not completely agree with God on what is a sin. Its not good to disagree with God.

I might add, one had better be sorry for ever sin that they can remember, that's for sure.

What just came to my mind is Job.

5 And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.
Job 1:5 (KJV)

I believe this shows just how serious sin is. Some take sin way to lightly. Perhaps that is what Eve and Adam did as well in the garden.

All sin is ugly, even what some consider to be just a small sin, confessed its a major thing.

Seems we are in a time when many think if the sin want send one to hell, its alright to partake of.
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A lot of times it sounds like that, Janine. Repentance (a change of mind) is required, since we do have to choose Christ- but a lot of people try to redefine repentance to mean something that it does not, and I think it's this wrong definition that you feel is works based. True repentance has no attachment to works (although after we are saved, our lives should reflect it). It simply means "a change of mind". It doesn't mean you have to change your mind and then change your actions (aka clean yourself up before you can get saved). That's where a lot of people get confused and take the path of works-based salvation. They believe God won't forgive us until we clean ourselves up, but that's not true.

Some people don't like the Greek, but the the word for repentance was in Greek before it was in English, so lets look there:

Luke 13:3 (just a random verse I picked out that contains the word repent)
I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent (με

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