How to Repent

This page is for anyone who needs to turn back to God, for the first time or the thousandth. If you fear you have repented too many times, read the word for you first. If your sorrow over sin has become a darkness that tells you to end your life, that voice is not God’s. In the United States call 988 or text 988 now, tell someone near you, and read If You Are Not Safe.

What Repentance Is

Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavour after, new obedience.

Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 87

It is God’s gift (Acts 11:18), and it is still your own turning, which he commands of you (Mark 1:15). The answer holds five things.

1. A true sense of sin. Not only its danger but its filthiness, because it is against God’s holy nature and law (WCF 15.2). A man who only fears hell is sorry about the danger.
2. An apprehension of God’s mercy in Christ. Without it, a sight of sin drives a man to hiding or despair. There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared (Psalm 130:4).
3. Grief and hatred of sin. You grieve that you did it, and you hate the thing itself, not only what it cost you.
4. Turning from it unto God. Away from the sin and toward him, and from all your sins, not only the one that shamed you (WCF 15.2).
5. Full purpose of, and endeavour after, new obedience. You mean to obey, and you begin. The purpose is whole even when the obedience is weak.

Repentance is not penance. It is no satisfaction for sin and no cause of pardon, which is the act of God’s free grace in Christ (WCF 15.3). Your tears do not wash you. Christ’s blood does (1 John 1:7). Yet none may expect pardon without repentance. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish (Luke 13:3). A man who says he trusts Christ while he means to keep his sin does not yet know whom he is trusting.

Two Kinds of Sorrow

For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

2 Corinthians 7:10 (KJV)

Paul was glad the Corinthians sorrowed to repentance, because it made them earnest to set things right (verses 9-11).

Judas and Peter both sinned against Christ on the same night. Judas repented himself, brought back the silver, and said, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood (Matthew 27:3-4). The words were true. But he took his sorrow to the priests and not to Christ, and he went out and hanged himself (Matthew 27:5). Peter denied his Lord three times. Then the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter, and Peter went out, and wept bitterly (Luke 22:61-62). His sorrow brought him back, and Christ restored him (John 21:15-17).

The difference was not how much they hurt. It was where they carried the hurt. Worldly sorrow grieves over loss and shame and turns in on itself. Godly sorrow runs to God for mercy. If you are in that darkness now, hear this carefully. Thoughts of ending your life do not prove that your repentance is false or that you are not his. Deep depression is often an illness of body and mind, and true believers have been crushed by it (read When Your Own Mind Has Gone Dark). But any voice that tells you Christ will not have you, or that death is the way out, is lying to you about him. Christ looked at Peter to call him back, and he has not stopped looking for you. Tell someone today, and if those thoughts press on you, call 988 or text 988.

Repent of Sins by Name

The Confession calls every man to repent of his particular sins particularly (WCF 15.5). Saying I am a sinner costs nothing. Saying what you did costs something. David’s prayer after Bathsheba is the pattern. He begins with God’s mercy, not his record (Psalm 51:1). Then he owns the sin.

For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

Psalm 51:3 (KJV)

He had wronged Uriah terribly, yet he says, Against thee, thee only, have I sinned (verse 4), because every sin is first against God. He asks to be washed (verse 2), for a clean heart (verse 10), and for the joy of salvation to come back (verse 12). And he knows God will not despise a broken and a contrite heart (verse 17).

Confess to God first, and then to those you have wronged, who are to receive you in love (WCF 15.6, Matthew 5:23-24). Where you took something, give it back. Zacchaeus said, if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold (Luke 19:8). The law asked for the thing returned and a fifth added (Numbers 5:7). If you lied about someone, tell the truth to those who heard it. Some wrongs cannot be undone, and some confessions would only wound again or put someone in danger. Ask an elder how and when.

Coming Home, and Coming Home Again

Christ taught us to ask for forgiveness in the same prayer as our daily bread, Forgive us our debts (Matthew 6:11-12). A believer keeps falling and keeps returning. That does not prove you never repented. It is what repentance looks like while sin remains (WCF 13.2). If the same sin keeps winning, read When Sin Will Not Leave, and for the long fight, A Greater Affection. Mortify can help you confess daily and fight alongside brethren from your church.

And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

Luke 15:20 (KJV)

Jesus told the story of the prodigal son because the Pharisees murmured that he received sinners (Luke 15:1-2). It is a parable. There was no particular son in a far country. But what it pictures is real. The son came to himself and went home to say, Father, I have sinned (verses 17-18). He meant to ask to be a hired servant, but his father never let him finish. He called for the robe, the ring, and the feast, for this my son was dead, and is alive again (verses 19-24). That is how the Father receives a sinner who comes home through his Son.

If You Fear You Have Repented Too Many Times

Christ told his disciples that if a brother sins against them seven times in a day, and seven times turns again saying, I repent, they must forgive him (Luke 17:4). He does not ask more mercy of us than he shows. Your pardon never rested on your count. It rests on his blood, and he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him (Hebrews 7:25). A heart that has hardened itself against God does not usually lie awake afraid of losing him. So come again tonight. Do not wait until you have stopped falling.

Steps for Today

1. Come to Christ first. Repentance without him is only regret. If you have never trusted him, read the gospel and come today.
2. Name the sin. Before God, say what you did and against whom. How to Examine Yourself can help you see it.
3. Pray Psalm 51 aloud. Then believe the promise. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (1 John 1:9).
4. Make it right this week. Go to the person you wronged. Pay back what you took.
5. Cut off the supply. Make not provision for the flesh (Romans 13:14). Change what made the sin easy, and tell an elder or a trusted brother (James 5:16).
6. Do it again tomorrow. A few minutes each night, looking back over the day, keeps short accounts with God.