Last week’s post dealt with the current trend in the modern church to forsake teaching on repentance and focus instead on love, truth, grace, justice, and mercy. Let’s look at what God’s Word says about repentance and why it isn’t just a tool churches use to make people feel bad.
Jesus Christ came to Earth to call sinners to repentance.
- Luke 5:31-32
Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Repentance is an uncomfortable and unpopular topic, but it is necessary because it means acknowledging, regretting, and turning away from the sin in our lives, which leads to salvation.
- 2 Corinthians 7:9-10
Yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
The Lord wants everyone to repent.
- 2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
If the church fails to teach repentance, then people may believe their salvation is based on their own efforts instead of the gift of salvation through Christ Jesus. We must remember “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23-24). While the church should not neglect teaching on love, truth, grace, justice, and mercy, it is not loving, truthful, gracious, just, or merciful to lead people to believe repentance doesn’t matter. I encourage you to “test everything” (Thessalonians 5:21) because in the modern church there are many who mean well but have strayed from the basic principles in God’s word.