Repentance and Faith

Christian Life Seminar Session 3

We are called to respond.

Our proper response is repentance and faith.

We are now called to respond to God’s love, grace and fellowship. Our proper response is repentance and faith (Mk 1:15).

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• We need to repent, i.e., to reform our lives.
• And we need to believe in the gospel, i.e., have faith in Jesus and the message he brings.

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Repentance and faith.

Repentance and faith go together. It is a double-action response. It is inadequate just to have one without the other.

Repentance and faith go together. It is a double-action response. It is inadequate just to have one without the other.

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• To just reform our lives is an inadequate response to God. Even pagans can be good. We need to also believe in Him and in His plans and promises.
• To simply believe in God without doing anything to reform our lives to become pleasing to God is also inadequate. Faith necessarily needs to be connected to morality. In other words, faith without works is dead.

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What is Repentance?

The Greek word for repentance is “metanoia,” which literally means a change of mind.

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Repentance

What is repentance?

It is not just a simple confession of wrongdoing. Rather, it refers to a change in direction.

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• It is a significant change in the way you live your life: dropping an old set of ideals and values by which you live your life and adopting new ones.
• Repentance affects the way you think and act, your attitudes, motives, thought and behavior.

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What is repentance?

Understanding what repentance is.

More specifically, repentance means:

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• A turning away from sin, evil, wrongdoing.
• This includes a turning away from running your own life. It is turning to a life of obedience to God and having Jesus on the throne of your life.

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What Repentance is Not

Wrong understanding about repentance

It is not dependent on feelings.

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• Rather, it depends on an objective decision to accept only God’s righteousness into one’s life and reject anything not compatible with this.

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What Repentance is Not

Wrong understanding about repentance

It is not being sorry for sin because we are afraid of the consequences.

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• We should not confuse sorrow for sin with sorrow for the consequences of sin. We must hate sin itself.

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How do we start?

What must we do to repent?

1. Be honest. Admit that we have sin in our lives.
• Call a spade a spade. If it is sin, do not call it a “growth experience.”
2. Renounce sin. Actively turn away from sin and decide not to do it again.
3. Ask God’s forgiveness.
• Because every sin is a sin against God. Ps 51:6.
• Be confident of God’s forgiveness. 1 Jn 1:9.
• Story of the prodigal son. Lk 15:11-24. If we turn back to our Father, no matter how badly we have lived our lives, He will restore us to our rightful place as His child.
4. Avail of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, i.e., go to a priest for confession.

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Serious sins

There are sins we need to renounce. They are serious and are totally incompatible with a relationship with God.

We are not referring to just so-called “small stuff” (i.e., venial sin, e.g., character flaws like always getting irritated), though these too have to be repented of. These mortal sins are:

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1. Spiritualism and the occult.
• This includes witchcraft, fortune telling, seances, playing spirit of the glass, etc.
2. Sexual wrongdoing.
• This includes sexual intercourse outside marriage, adultery, active homosexuality.

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Serious sins

There are sins we need to renounce. They are serious and are totally incompatible with a relationship with God.

3. Abortion. Also contraception, which the Church says is an intrinsic evil.
4. Serious crimes such as murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery, corruption.
5. Drunkenness (not just drinking but drunkenness) and getting stoned on drugs.
6. Not going to Sunday Mass every week.

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Our second response is faith.

Faith is belief in the gospel, which is the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ.

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What is Faith?

Faith is a personal act and decision. It has several aspects (Rev 3:20).

Faith is a personal act and decision. It has several aspects (Rev 3:20).

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1. It is a definite act. We must open the door if Jesus is to come into our lives.
2. It is an individual act. We need to open the door to our own heart. No one can do that for us.
3. It is a deliberate act. We do not have to wait for a supernatural light to flash upon us from heaven (like Paul’s experience) or an emotional experience to overtake us. We already know that Jesus came into this world and died for our sins. He is now standing outside the door of our hearts and is knocking. The next move is ours.

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What is Faith?

Faith is a personal act and decision. It has several aspects (Rev 3:20).

Faith is a personal act and decision. It has several aspects (Rev 3:20).

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4. It is an urgent act. The future is uncertain and time is passing away.
5. It is an indispensable act.
• It is part of our double-action response.
• It is the step needed to receive all God has promised. Faith is relying on all God has said. Example of Peter walking on the water (Mt 14:25-29).

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God has promised us new life.

Faith is accepting that life and letting God show us how to live it. We must be willing to do whatever God wants of us, and actually do it.

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What do we gain?

Consequences of repentance and faith.

Acts 16:31.

• A promise of salvation from sin, Satan, death.
• A promise of forgiveness and eternal life with God.

Luke 11:9-13.

• A promise of new life in the Spirit.
• We can pray for a greater release of the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

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Jesus sounded the call to repentance and faith.

It is the same call to us today. We are called to turn away from sin and all obstacles to God, and to accept Jesus as Lord.

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