Repentance, defined

Just a short note today-- at church our pastor focused on something that I believe the "modern" church either too often neglects, or hits hard in all the wrong ways: Repentance.  Literally, to repent means to "think again."  In order to be saved, we must repent of our sins and place all our trust and hope in Jesus Christ.  Our pastor used this quote, which is very unusual because he's not a man who usually quotes anything except the Bible:

"Repentance means turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God, and as our knowledge grows at these three points so our practice of repentance has to be enlarged."-- J.I. Packer

This quote really resonated with me.  When I first got saved, about 11 or 12 years ago, I was an idiot.  I didn't know a thing about sound doctrine or have any knowledge of scripture beyond John 3:16 (though if you don't know anything, that's always a good place to start!) Looking back I can identify so many ideas I had, so many things I did, so much of ME that was still in rebellion towards God-- yet I do believe at that time I was saved, even if I didn't have everything (or most anything, really) "right."  As our pastor intoned today, NONE of us will until death or rapture.  Once we're saved, our whole lives are spent striving and growing in knowledge and faith.  After a decade-plus of true salvation, I can see that this is definitely true for me.  Things I believed or didn't believe or didn't know eight or ten years ago are just so clear to me now.  Things I did or didn't do... it's pretty much a night and day difference in my character, and I can't take ANY credit at all, it's all to the glory of the Holy Spirit.  And I still have so far to go!

I might revisit this topic in a future post, but I said I would keep it short... anyway, this was a great reminder for me today to extend grace and understanding to everyone no matter where they are in their walk with Jesus Christ.  People who don't know him, people who have just gotten saved, and people who have walked with him for years and years are all somewhere on the journey of repentance-- some are just babies (a better term than "idiot" which I usually just reserve for myself :) ), others are wise, and everyone else is somewhere in between.  Learning to "think again" about our own selfish desires and actions is an ongoing process, and as long as we lean on Jesus he will lead us the whole way.