Articles
Sorry Enough to Quit
Sorry Enough to Quit
A Sunday school teacher asked her class, “What does repentance mean?” A little boy raised his hand and answered, “It is being sorry for your sins.” Then a little girl raised her hand and said, “It is being sorry enough to quit.” She was right. There’s more to repentance than being sorry that we’ve sinned. We have to be sorry enough to quit!
Is that how you view repentance? It is crucial that we understand repentance correctly. Otherwise we’ll never get right with God. In fact, we’ll never become saved in the first place.
The New American Oxford Dictionary defines the word ‘repent’ this way: “feel or express sincere regret or remorse about one's wrongdoing or sin.” This is an incomplete definition. The Bible doesn’t say, “When you sin, just feel bad and say that you feel bad, and you’ll be forgiven.” Certainly, contrition is a necessary element of true repentance, but it is not the only element.
The Greek word for repentance means “a change of mind,” therefore repentance by definition means changing your mind about how you are going to live. When the Pharisees and Sadducees came to be baptized by John, he refused to baptize them, instructing them to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” (Matt. 3:8). That’s what we have to do — bear fruits worthy of repentance.
A surprising number of people who come forward for baptism don’t realize this. One time there was an unmarried couple who asked a preacher to baptize them. After asking them a few questions to make sure they understood the purpose of baptism, the preacher asked if they were living together. They said yes. He asked if they were willing to stop living together once they got baptized. They said they were not sure if they were willing to do that, so they chose not to get baptized at that time.
How often do we think we’re repenting when, in reality, we have no intention of changing our behavior whatsoever? Probably more often than we’d like to admit. We want to have the hope of Heaven without the painful sacrifice of plucking out our eye and cutting off our hand.
When I was a boy, I went through a phase where I would literally tell myself, “I’m going to commit this sin, and then I’m going to ask God to forgive me.” Then after a while I’d do the same thing again. And again. That’s not repentance!
The only way to determine whether we’ve truly repented is whether our actions change. This isn’t to say that repentance requires perfection. We can never become sinless. However, repentance does require change. It requires movement towards perfection. The Christian who continues in habitual and willful sin is lost (1 John 3:4-9; Heb. 10:26-31), no matter how many times he confesses his sins to God.
Do not merely be sorry for your sins. Be sorry enough to quit. This is true repentance. “He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy” (Prov. 28:13).
