This is the first of a series of posts on true repentance. Today, we are going to look at when we first repent in being saved. “Repent and believe”. – Jesus, Mark 1:15. Sounds simple enough right? But the meaning of the word “repent” has become a bit muddled over the past couple of centuries of church history due, in part, to a heavier focus on evangelism. While evangelism is not a bad thing (in fact, it’s wonderful), contemporary methods of presenting the Gospel have reduced salvation as Paul Washer puts it to a “simple prayer.” No mystery, no wonder, no inner change, just a mental ascent to change our direction (repent) from our ways. Repent means more than just to decide against something. It means to “exercise sorrow for sin” that causes us to not only turn from it but to be repulsed by it. John Owen says that one of the marks of a true believer is that they HATE their sin. Romans 8:7 says, “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law, indeed, it cannot.” So, how can a person whose inner nature is “hostile” towards God, simply love him. That’s like hating peas and then deciding you love them. Something has to change. To truly repent (hate our sin and turn towards the Lord) we have to experience regeneration. This is where God opens our eyes to the Gospel through the work of the Holy Spirit. He revives our cold, dead hearts (Ezekiel 36:26) t0 life! To be saved, one must cry out to the Lord for rescue, not simply decide to love Him. That’s why repentance is more than just saying we are sorry to God. It’s where Lord meets us on the Damascus Road (Acts 9:1-19), upends our false securities and show’s Himself glorious to us, rendering us speechless and in awe of His wonder! When we see the majesty of Christ, we are compelled to hate our sin, therefore, turning from it. Here’s the danger of reducing repentance down to just a prayer. There’s no magic in the prayer. It is mere words that cannot save us. After we cry out to the Lord, He saves us. What tends to happen is that people are convinced they are saved when there has been no inner change. They love the same sins they cherished. This is dangerous because we get into a sort of “behavioral modification” where we simply trade our sins for a more socially or “church” accepted set of sins. For example, a person may have been a drug addict but shifts that to a hunger for power within the church or a person with a foul mouth shifts into being a gossip. These new, more “acceptable” sins are rarely talked about or exposed. This can confuse individual believers, cripple families, and cause dissension within the church. We must preach that to truly repent we must cry out to the Lord for help because we can’t do it Bob Thune in the “Gospel Centered Life” says that true repentance is: 1) Oriented toward God, not me 2) Motivated by true godly sorrow and not just selfish regret 3) Concerned with the heart, not just external actions 4) Looks to Jesus for deliverance from the penalty and power of sin True repentance (in salvation) is preceded by the work of the Holy Spirit to revive us (regeneration). Then and only then will the lost experience salvation and freedom from the weight of sin! We must call for all to repent and believe the Gospel of Jesus “For if we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” – Romans 5:10