This is what Paul preached wherever he went. “… I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds” (Acts 26:20). There should be an outward working of our ongoing repentance.
Repent – In Your Relationships
It’s all too easy to see the call to repent as directed solely toward God. Certainly, that is part of it, but there is almost nothing about our faith that has only vertical implications. Most things are equally meant to be applied horizontally through our relationships with others.
To put it another way, when we are called to love God, we are also called to love others. And when we are to turn away from the sin, we are to view that in the way we relate to our fellow humans.
You should be open to reproof and correction from those around you. When you have wronged someone and are made aware of it, you should be led toward repentance. Christians must put aside their pride and replace it with repentance.
Repent – In Your Churches
Recently, there have been many grave offenses being brought to light among church leaders. Highly influential churches and leaders have committed sins that continue to be covered up.
In light of these devastating revelations, many Christians have responded by saying, “Well everyone sins, so who are we to judge?” But the biblical response should be to repent. These organizations and churches should turn away from their sin and turn towards God. We need institutional repentance.
And this isn’t to be flippant about it. The cost of truly turning away from sin can be high. This is why we try to hide our sin, or at least frame it in a way that softens the offense. In our broken way of thinking, we understand sin is wrong in principle, but we still don’t want to lose everything else attached to that sin.
For many leaders who’ve walked in blatant sin, repentance looks like stepping down from their leadership role. For some organizations, repentance might look like closing their doors. The call to turn away from sin can exact a high price that’s difficult to pay. But we must. Our Christian organizations and leaders must lead in repentance.
Repent – In Our Communities
The idea of communal sin is commonplace in scripture. Through one man, sin entered the world. There isn’t one person alive today who disobeyed God in the garden of Eden, but there’s no denying we’re living in the effects of the decision of one man.
In the same way, the bible says it’s through one Man that salvation enters the world. Jesus took on the sins of the entire world so that we can enter into a relationship with God. This may be a foreign concept for us as Americans, but it shouldn’t be foreign to us as Christians.
We should live with a posture of repentance, not only as individuals, but as entire communities. Even if we didn’t directly commit a sin against another, we see and participate in the ongoing effects of the sins of those around us and must repent.
In the same way that turning away from sin isn’t easy for church leaders and organizations, it certainly isn’t easy for communities. But we can’t allow our communities to side step repentance because of how great the cost. When there is systematic sin happening around us, we must be part of turning away from the sin and turning toward Jesus.
