CHARLO, New Brunswick, September 27, 2023 – Repentance is critically important for us Christians. The sincerity of our repentance determines the strength of our belief, which then impacts everything we do. Without sincere and full repentance, there can be no or only superficial “learned” belief and therefore no genuine witness to others and no one-on-one personal relationship with God and Jesus.

And without a one-on-one personal relationship with God and Jesus, there’s no chance at Heaven.

During the time of Jesus’ ministry, the people of Nazareth, including Jesus’ own blood relatives, did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Scripture tells us that Jesus, when he visited Nazareth during his ministry rounds, was unable to perform any miracles there because of the people’s “unbelief”. But what was the cause of their unbelief? What stopped them from seeing Jesus for who and what he was?

Belief is an inner knowing that cannot be easily explained beyond saying that it just is. Belief cannot be easily explained because it’s seated in the soul, which itself can’t be measured, at least not with the crude instruments we have on Earth. Belief is not something we’re born with; it comes to us courtesy of God’s Holy Spirit. Without the presence of the Holy Spirit in our soul, we can have knowledge of things, but we can’t truly believe. And without truly believing God’s Word, we’re constantly in danger of falling away.

Repentance is the key to believing in the Gospel. I know an angry young atheist who’s all but memorized the book of Revelation. He can quote circles around me when it comes to scripture, but he questions everything he quotes and he believes none of it. That’s not to denigrate knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but knowledge is not something most people would stake their lives on. Knowledge tends to change and be replaced with something else as new facts emerge, whereas belief remains constant, unchanging, and unshakeable in those whose belief comes not by their own power but by the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

Both Jesus and John the Baptist preached the essentiality of repentance, and both of their ministries were grounded in repentance. So what is repentance and why is it so important for belief?

WHAT IS REPENTANCE?

When we repent, we not only acknowledge our sins and failures, we also acknowledge our weaknesses and our need for help. At the same time, we pledge both within ourselves and to God not to do the sinful behavior ever again and we ask God to forgive and absolve us of our sins. That is generally what is understood by most Christians as being repentance.

So far, so good, but that’s only half of the repentance equation. The other half is equally as important but rarely gets much coverage.

Here is the other half of the repentance equation: Along with acknowledging our sins and weaknesses and asking God for help and forgiveness, we just as importantly need to forgive those who’ve sinned against us, which means we not only need to forgive them, but we also need to forgive them whatever sins they’ve sinned against us. This is the half of the repentance equation that most Christians miss and so remain for all intents and purposes unrepentant, even after they think they’ve repented. Being unrepentant, these Christians still have a hard heart (an unforgiving heart is a hard heart), and God’s Spirit cannot and will not work through a hard heart.

Without full and sincere “both sides of the equation” repentance, there can be only superficial belief that is based on knowledge, not on God’s revelation through his Spirit. There can be knowledge but not belief.  You cannot learn belief; like grace, belief is a gift that comes from God. You cannot on your own steam increase your belief just by trying to believe harder. Many have attempted this impossible task and all have failed. Your belief can only be established by the power of God, not by your own efforts. But the one thing that you can do on our own steam is to repent sincerely and fully.

When Jesus told us to “REPENT, AND BELIEVE THE GOSPEL!”, he was advising us to repent, while letting us know that belief would come as a natural outcome of the repentance. Repenting was something that we needed to choose to do, but belief would follow as a consequence. In other words, belief requires no effort on our part. Jesus wasn’t urging us to believe, he was urging us to repent. Belief would then follow as surely as day follows night.

This is the main reason why so many Christians don’t really believe the Gospel. They have knowledge of God’s Word, but they don’t really believe God’s Word because they haven’t sincerely and fully repented. Not having sincerely and fully repented, their heart is still hard and God’s Spirit cannot come into them. They remain supernaturally spiritually deaf and blind, as foretold by Isaiah.

Again, repentance is not only acknowledging your own sin and weakness and asking for God’s help and forgiveness, it’s choosing to forgive those who’ve sinned against you as well as choosing to forgive the sins they’ve sinned against you. If you only acknowledge your own sin and weakness and ask for God’s help and forgiveness but refuse to forgive those who have sinned against you, you haven’t repented. You’ve only done half of what you need to do to repent. And if you only do half of what you need to do to repent, your heart will remain hard and your belief in the Gospel will remain superficial and perilous.

So I guess the reason why the Nazarenes, including Jesus’ blood relatives, didn’t believe that Jesus was the Messiah was because they had hard hearts, which made them supernaturally spiritually deaf and blind. They all needed to repent, and to do so fully and sincerely.

How about you? Is your repentance full and sincere, or are you missing out on the second half of the repentance equation? If you haven’t yet repented in the way that you need to repent in order to truly believe the Gospel, maybe you should take Jesus’ advice and do so now. You shouldn’t have to work at believing – you might have to occasionally work at repenting, as it sometimes takes us some degree of discipline to drag ourselves before God and admit we were wrong, but no effort should be required to believe. If we fully and sincerely repent, belief in the Gospel just happens, thanks to God.

“The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye and believe the gospel!“

Mark 1:15