I’m not sure you can truly repent until you realize it’s your whole life that you need to repent from, not just individual sins.
I wrote yesterday on what Jesus says a follower of Him looks like. The first thing He preached after His baptism and tribulation was repentance.
From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Matthew 4:17 NASB
I didn’t fully understand what it was to repent until I not only intellectually and theologically thought I was a sinner, but realized my heart is wicked and selfish in all its ways.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Jeremiah 17:9 KJV
When Jesus told me in my prayer “everything is your fault”, I, for the first time, understood in my heart and soul that I’m a sinner against God. Even though I knew and believed in Jesus, I still held onto my good behavior as something that made me ok. I’d really believed that because I tried to take Jesus into consideration on decisions that I wasn’t that bad. I was the other brother in the prodigal son story. I was the one praying at the wall looking up to heaven.
That statement, “everything is your fault”, broke me. All the lies I had told myself were shattered. All my good deeds were shattered. I wept bitterly.
For the first time I truly repented. Not of individual sins, which were large and numerous, but repented of my nature. I became the one who couldn’t even look up while praying. I repented because I realized there is nothing good about me apart from Jesus.
When I repented, that is when I first truly started my discipleship with Jesus.
If you think there is any good in you apart from Jesus repent. The path to discipleship starts there.
This post has started and stopped many times. It’s been by far the most difficult to write. I pray that the Lord is glorified by it.
Thanks for reading, and Lord willing, I’ll see y’all tomorrow.
If you want to hear my testimony where I discuss the sin(s) that led to my repentance, check out our podcast Run to Win Ep. 01.