Anyone who is married can understand that you get a nice life long lesson on forgiveness and repentance (both being forgiven and forgiving). I read a book recently that caused me to reflect on the topic of repentance. I recently wrote on my twitter page: I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,
Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?
All of these passages illustrate the wonderful message of Gospel Driven repentance. We know that through Christ' death and resurrection we have the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7). This beautiful act of love leads us to repentance. Paul is asking the question in Romans 2:4, would the Romans really show contempt because God is rich in mercy and kindness, His tolerance and patience which is rooted is love leads us to repentance, to change our attitude, our interests so that we now want His attitudes and His interests!
What is most important is that God's expression of kindness is rooted in what Christ has done for us:
"And God raised us up with Christ...in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus."
This richness in love, mercy and kindness rooted in Christ' death leads sinners (depraved, broken people who fall short of God's glory-Romans 3:10-11; 23) to repentance.
Our aim is love Christ through a transformed heart and through bearing fruit that will last (John 15:16). The problem is we do not always bear good fruit. So when we do not live this way then we must repent. Not because we did something bad or we fear that God will leave us but because of the gospel. This probably why so many people distort Scripture passages because they devoid them of what they point to: the gospel! This kind of repentance doesn't merely say sorry but recognizes that there is something wrong. They seek godly counsel, they seek accountability, they pour over God's word and most importantly they recognize they are free, redeemed, forgiven and loved.
The motivation of repentance is love which is manifested perfectly in the gospel.
Legal Driven Repentance:
Legal driven repentance is pretty self explanatory and yet I can admit find myself and others falling into this category way too often. This kind of repentance beats the person up. You feel remorse for the sin you have done, but you are more scared than sorrowful. You dwell on it so much that you shut out those who love you and in the process compound the sin you've committed. You spend hours mulling over it and this kind of repentance can incite emotions to. You can cry, feel terrible, say I never want to do this again because your afraid of what God will do not because of what He's done. It is driven by legalism, and fear. None of the 22 biblical uses of metanioa have this kind of repentance in mind.
The motivation for repentance is simply fear, not love.
I leave you with an example as I believe marriage is the one of the clearest pictures of the gospel and Christ:
Just imagine if I sinned against my wife and repented simply because I was motivated by fear of what she might do rather than because I loved her. She may get the result (or not) but she doesn't get my heart.
Be Blessed.
