True Repentance

Are our modern day churches teaching New Testament Christianity? Are they teaching that to be saved, truly saved, one must repent of their sins?

Some time ago, I heard a very disturbing statistic. The statistic was that 50% of all newborn Christians were dropping out of their walks wit the Lord withing the very first year after they had been "saved".

Getting saved and being truly born again by accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior has to be the greatest experience any person can have this side of heaven, because with the gift of eternal salvation comes forgiveness of all of our sins and entrance into heaven when we die. We also receive the Holy Spirit, who will come and live on the inside of us in our human spirits at the moment of our salvation with the Lord.

There can be no question that with all of these benefits and blessings, that the gift of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ has to be the greatest experience any of us can have down here on this earth. So if that is really the case - how than can you logically explain such a disturbing statistic?

Were they really saved in the first place? If so, have they lost their salvation? Obviously only God the Father will know all of the answers. But this statistic is telling us that there might be something wrong with some of these salvation experiences.

If you look very closely at the wording of the Scripture verses listed below, and then examine some of the ways in which some of these newborns are being saved - you will quickly discover that there is a missing ingredient in some of their salvation experiences. As a result of this missing ingredient, some of these people are either not truly getting saved in the first place or if they are, they are quickly falling away.

This one key missing ingredient may be the word "repentance." Repentance means that you have a full realization of what a sinner you truly are, that you are willing to accept that Jesus' death on the Cross will save you from your sins, and that you will then be willing to make every effort to turn from those sins and start living a new life in the Lord.

Some salvation experiences are people getting too caught up in the moment at their churches with some of their friends, and they are going up for the altar calls with no idea of what they are really doing.

There is no true repentance, sorrow, or realization of their sinful states. As a result, they did not have full realization as to why they needed to get saved in the first place.

Here are some key verses from Scripture that will tell us that a true repentance from the heart is one of the main ingredients that is needed for a true salvation experience:

"For godly sorrow produces repentance to salvation (2 Corinthians 7:10)

Notice these two things. The word "repentance" is linked to the word "salvation". In other words, you cannot get truly saved in the Lord unless you are first willing to repent.  To repent means that you are willing to turn from the sins you have been living in. It means to have a change of heart and a change of mind. However, you cannot be willing to turn from the sins you have been living in unless you have full realization that these are sins in the first place and that you are a sinner in need of a Savior!

Then notice that this verse starts out with the words "For godly sorrow." This godly sorrow will be what will actually cause this repentance to occur in the first place.  This is why the word "godly" precedes the word "sorrow". This sorrow will be coming direct from God the Father through the Holy Spirit to you so as to help make you realize that you are truly a sinner in need of a Savior! When that happens, you will be feeling a sorrow, a very deep and intense sorrow, once you fully realize the depth to which we are all sinners and that we are all in need of God's grace and mercy to save us.

"Godly" sorrow" will help produce the actual repentance that is needed to lead us into being able to get saved with the Lord. The next verse then goes one step further and tells us that the "goodness of God" will actually lead to this repentance... "the goodness of God leads you to repentance" (Romans 2:4).

In these next four verses, God and Jesus are literally "commanding" that all repent before they can actually be saved and converted:

"Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent." (Acts 17:30)

"Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord." (Acts 3:19)

"I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish." (Luke 13:5)

"Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." (Mark 2:17)

The first verse is telling us that God is commanding everyone to repent. The second verse is once more trying the word "repent" with the word "converted". The third verse is telling us that God is not giving us any other options. Either be willing to repent - or we will perish!

Once a person really realizes how good, loving, and merciful God and Jesus really are in making a way for them to be able to be rescued out of this predicament - they are then more than willing to accept Jesus and what His death on the Cross means for them. When you combine the godly sorrow that God will produce to help start the conviction and repentance process, and then top it off with the revelation that it is the goodness of God that will actually save them - there is simply no way one can walk away from such a powerful encounter with the Lord!

This fact is telling us that some of the people being "saved" today may not be going through a proper repentance and conviction process with the Holy Spirit, and thus their experiences may be a bit suspect.

The one big missing ingredient before an altar call to accept Christ as our Savior is the instructions on true "repentance" and what it means.  Without these instructions, many are missing the mark and are not truly saved. I pray that, in the meantime, they will take to reading their Bible and finding our for themselves just how important "repentance" truly is before accepting Christ for salvation that may lead them nowhere!

(Some quotes taken from Bible Knowledge Ministries)