When we think about the season of Lent, we often think about it as a season of repentance, and when most Christians think about repentance, they often cringe. Those who think that way are still living at some level under the law. The law was a great gift of love to mankind because it chased us to grace so that our place before God and our walk with God would be based on His performance and not ours.
The word “repent” comes from 2 Greek words; “think” and “with.” To repent of something is to have my mind renewed to think with God. To think what God thinks about me and everything else in life is what repentance is all about. The point of repentance is transformation because we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. People cringe at the idea of repentance because they think it’s about standing before a disapproving God who is just going to make us feel worse about ourselves than we already do. The fallen mind is a thought life full of self rejection, the fear of rejection, and therefore the horror of a life of anxiety. The Bible says that we have “the mind of Christ” because we are in Christ. Therefore, one of the most important ways we repent is when we stop thinking about ourselves in relationship with God as standing alone, offering our performance as the source of our acceptance before Him. If we have the mind of Christ, then we need to repent and start thinking of our relationship with God the way Jesus thinks about His relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Whenever God reveals sin in our lives, it is not the God of condemnation (He has never been the God of condemnation); it is the God of hope – Romans 15:13 – that we encounter. He shows us sin so that we can repent because He is so passionately determined that we experience everything that Christ accomplished for us at the cross. We don’t ever have to fear His rejection. He shows us where we are blowing it with Hope in His heart because He doesn’t want us to miss one little bit of the life more abundant that’s ours in Christ. Thank God for the gift of repentance. It is always the steppingstone to freedom and life.