True Repentance

"Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear."

~Ephesians 4:28-29

When we think of someone repenting, when we think of someone changing, we usually think of someone who stops their negative action. We settle for a neutral. A thief who stops stealing. Someone who tears people down holding their tongue. 

But God's way is so much better.

With God the thief no longer steals, yes, but he doesn't stop there. Rather, in repentance over his stealing, he becomes someone who not only does honest work but also someone who will share with those in need. Where he once stole, he doesn't merely work for what he has but also provides for others, giving out of what he has earned. 

That's a true turning. That's not only stopping the death we put in the world but actively pursuing the life of the Kingdom.

But too often this isn't our expectation. We expect much less of people. I remember a show predicated on the basis that people are basically good and circumstance and complexity are all that make us bad, and even in that show when people tried to change on their own, their efforts eventually failed. The characters made real changes, owned up to their wrongs, and pursued goodness, but goodness was hard. Goodness had no reward. And eventually they drifted back into the people they'd once been before their change took place. 

We know how hard change is. We see how impossible it is for someone to genuinely do a complete 180. If someone is rooted in their bad action, if people would define them by it, it's hard enough to believe they could turn away from it. Turning to something good, becoming a source of life instead, feels impossible. But God's way is our impossible. God's way is His made possible.

Our low view of change is accurate when all we have is ourselves, but the key of repentance is not that it turns us away from our bad action but that it turns us toward God, empowering us by His Spirit to desire what He desires and to live in His life.

We struggle to sustain real change, but God is our Sustainer. His Spirit fills and empowers us. His Spirit moves and renews us. His Spirit leads us not only out of temptation but into His design for our lives.

We may be satisfied with stopping the bad action, with putting off the old self, thinking it's all we can expect, but God goes further. God tells us to put on the new self, which is ours in Jesus. He gives us more than the absence of evil; He gives us the presence of good. He gives us real transformation. He gives us testimony. 

Because when someone stops their bad action, we see growth, but when the very place of bad becomes a source of good, we pause. We get curious. We look deeper. We stand in awe. We stand in awe at the thief who becomes generous. If he stole from need, he now meets those needs; if he stole out of greed, he has broken the chain and now counts others more than himself. We stand in awe at the person who spoke death now pouring life on others. 

We stand in awe of what we have in God. Of what is possible in Him. We stand in awe of who God is as His power and character are displayed in someone else. In a person whose brokenness we've seen.

Repentance changes things. Repentance takes us from death to life. It renews us to become the very bringers of goodness where we once bred something bad. But repentance doesn't just change things for the person who is transformed. It changes things for those who see the change. For those who couldn't believe it was possible. For those who behold what God has done in the life of someone else.

True repentance will never settle for a neutral because true repentance will wash us in the heart of God, in His design, in His goodness, in His desire for us, and when we encounter Him, we are changed by Him, and when we are changed, we put Him on display to the watching world.

He is a God of the impossible. In our hearts and in our world. He is a God who makes all things new.