Repentance: Turning Your Life Round

We all have times when we need to turn our lives around. Times when we feel stuck, out of control, lost to the elements of life.

Depending how we are stuck or what situation we are in determines how we need to respond…and what response we need.

Recognition comes before repentance.

This recognition can come to us through different means:

 Conscience – instinctive feeling of right and wrong
 Conviction – inner sense of God’s Spirit speaking to you
 Creation – a growing understanding of your relationship to the world

All of these things frame your life, giving you the understanding your existence goes far beyond what you have yet seen or experienced.

Repentance plays a large role in this growing sense of conscience, conviction and creation because it allows you to turn round and face a different way.

Repentance – ‘metanoia’ = to change ones mind. To turn round and face a different direction.

Repentance is such a big theme in the Bible for the simple reason we are all fallen, stuck, trapped, guilty or however we might choose to describe it.

We all need to reconnect, to break away from our guilt, failures and sins – repentance is the means through which we do this.

‘Come now, let us reason together,’ together says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be white like wool.’ (Isaiah 1:18)

‘All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.’ (Isaiah 64:6)

This idea that we are unclean – that something is out of place is a collected process gathered over time.

Story 1

Story 2

At some point in our life our guilt is exposed – we are shown to be who we really are and often we are not too proud about that!

Play Rob Bell – Lump

‘Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.’ (Galatians 6:7)

Lump – Sometimes its easier to run upstairs rather than face the truth.

Wherever you go, there you are.

We can try and escape lots of things, situations and people, but we cannot escape from ourselves.

Eventually, things catch up with us and when they do we have decision to make – how do we escape the guilt, the shame.

‘The sins of some are obvious, reaching the place of judgement ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them.’ (1 Timothy 5:24)

When we find ourselves in that place, when our sins have caught us or caught up with us there is a way out – we have arrived at the place of repentance.

‘Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance.’ (Romans 2:4)

Acknowledge the Situation – Acknowledgement/Confession
Probe the Issues – Investigation/Reflect
Act on the Problem – Solution/Resolve