What does it mean to repent?

       Is Biblical repentance just feeling sorry for doing things we know to be contrary to the will of God?  Is repentance a change of life?  What, exactly, is repentance?
     It will serve us better first to look at some things that repentance is not.  Repentance is not being sorry for being caught in something one knows to be wrong.  Many people “repent” when they get caught lying, cheating, stealing, etc.  They are ashamed and embarrassed at getting caught, not at what they were doing.  This is what the apostle Paul refers to as the sorrow of the world which brings death (2 Cor. 7:10).  Repentance is not godly sorry.  According to 2 Corinthians 7:10, godly sorrow brings about repentance.  Godly sorrow is seeing sin as God sees it.  That is, the sin itself is viewed as being evil, not just the consequences.  Those who commit sin find pleasure in such, but one who sorrows after a godly sorrow realizes that the sin is evil, despite the pleasure it might bring.  Repentance is not a turning from a life of sin.  Peter told those to whom he preached to repent and turn again [unto God] (Acts 3:19).  The turning back to God follows one’s repentance.  Repentance is not asking forgiveness for sins one committed.  When Peter and John went to Samaria to confer upon the new converts the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Simon the sorcerer asked to buy the ability to pass on these miraculous gifts (Acts 8:18,19).  Peter rebuked Simon for his sin.  He then told Simon to repent and pray so that God would forgive him (Acts 8:22).  The prayer for forgiveness followed Simon’s repentance (Note that Simon had become a child of God upon being baptized [8:13].  As a child of God, he was to repent and then pray for forgiveness.  Those outside the body of Christ must repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.  Those outside the body of Christ do not have the privilege of praying to God for the forgiveness of sins.).
     What, then, is repentance?  Godly sorrow leads one to repent, and a turning away from sin back to God follows it.  One of the best Biblical illustrations of repentance is found in Matthew 21:28-31.  A certain man had two sons, whom he asked to go work in his vineyard.  The first son initially refused, but afterward he repented and went.  He had a change of mind which resulted in a change of life!  When we are guilty of committing sins, but then come to see sin as God sees it (godly sorrow), this should cause us to make a decision that we will no longer do those things which displease God; rather, we will try to live for Him as best we can.  This decision being made will then lead us to turn our lives away from sin and back to God.  The best definition of repentance I ever heard was that repentance is a change of mind, resulting in a change of life, making restitution wherein is possible.  This is Biblical repentance.

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