Repenting of sin to fellow believers affirms the gospel and releases the power of the Spirit in your life and calling. This is a very tangible picture of how Jesus changes our hearts. If you want to experience this, consider what you need to repent of and who you need to repent to.
Have you ever had a distinct experience of the power and presence of God in your life? Scripture promises that the Holy Spirit has been given to us (Isa. 59:21; Luke 11:13; John 14:16–20), and we experience this promise in many ways. Think of a sermon that moved you to great thankfulness or to tears of conviction. Think of a “chance” encounter or text message when a brother or sister in the Lord shared a verse with you at a very specific time in your life. Think of a time of communion around the Lord’s Table or a time of praise when you’ve felt so loved by Christ and so cared for by His people. Maybe you’ve been praying for an issue to change or a mission to fulfill, and God has answered those prayers, perhaps even against all human expectation.
Yes, we are thankful for those and so many other evidences and experiences of our Father’s good grace to His children through Christ’s Spirit.
But I want to challenge you to embrace a biblical calling that, if applied, will lead to a great experience of God’s presence in your life and in the life of your fellowship. This is the call to repent of your sin.
Of course, we repent and follow Jesus when we commit to the Lord in faith. The Greek word metanoia literally means “about turn” (Acts 8:22). We are walking in darkness and in sin. We are convicted by the Spirit of Christ about our lifestyle. We “about turn” and march away from the sinful path and toward the life of righteousness. But this call to repent is more than the start of the Christian walk. It is the whole of our Christian lives. Calvin says: “The exercise of repentance ought to be uninterrupted throughout our whole life.”1
