What are Repentance and Faith?

I am taking a personal evangelism class this week and we have to write a one page summary on a topic to share each day in class. I'll post each this week as I finish them. Below is a brief summary answering the question: What are Repentance and Faith? or What is our response to this news?

            There is a side of the gospel message that is often left out. We love to hear that “Jesus died on the cross for our sins.” It makes us feel safe. So many hear that line thinking that they have their ticket to paradise which they will keep in their back pocket for the day they need it. But few are those who see the gospel defining every moment of their lives.

Repent is a common word in the New Testament yet it is a word that is quite unpopular today. Simply, it describes a change of mind, a change of attitude toward something. When Jesus and his apostles command us to repent they aren’t suggesting we now think nice things about Jesus, believing that he is now our buddy. It implies that the way we are living right now is offensive to God and we need to immediately stop and search desperately for a new way of life. Repentance isn’t just the moment one asks for forgiveness in order to get into heaven; the life of a Christian is one of continual repentance. Martin Luther proclaimed, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, "Repent,” he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” To profess to be a follower of Jesus is to always be denying yourself, not defending yourself. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” A life of repentance is marked with continual processes of questioning our own desires and asking God to replace them with his own.

Not only must we turn away from ourselves, we need to turn toward something with power to overcome our problems. We use the words faith and belief in strange ways. They are words that are supposed to indicate our relationship with something, and attitude toward something. But we often use them as objects themselves. We say that faith will help me through a problem. Or we vaguely say that we have belief that things will work out. But the Bible uses them differently. They are essentially the same word and they are the opposite side of the repentance coin. When we turn away from ourselves (repent) we must turn toward Jesus (believe). We must have faith in something. And our faith is worthless if it isn’t in something of greatest value. Only Jesus can satisfy the wrath of God toward us in our sins. We cannot simply say that God is forgiving and he will forgive me, somehow convincing ourselves that we are okay with God. The payment for sin must be satisfied. God would not be good if he just let us go free. Our only hope for mercy is to throw ourselves desperately at the blood-stained feet of Jesus and put all of our hope in his payment for our sin.

Repentance and faith are complementary actions. They define the entire life of a believer. We make every decision, we express every attitude, we establish our very identities through the actions of repentance from our former self and faith in Christ’s past work on the cross and his renewing work inside of us. Repentance and faith are the outworking of Christ’s work within us. He changes us from the inside, out day-by-day turning us away from our old desires and revealing to us greater joy in following his.