Repentance is interesting to me because it’s so hard. Easy things generally aren’t interesting because there’s very little to learn from them. The benefits and consequences of an easy action are usually well known and well understood – people just try it and see what happens.
Bear in mind that I’m talking about *ease*. It’s important to distinguish between ease and simplicity. Many simple things (like asking forgiveness) can be very difficult. It’s also important to distinguish between ease and the size of an activity’s common denominator – there are many difficult activities which anyone can perform, yet which are difficult nonetheless. Finally, ease shouldn’t be confused with triviality or unimportance. Many easy tasks are crucial.
At the most fundamental level, Christianity rests upon the understanding that we need God. The basis of our need for God and the basis for our having a relationship with him underlies everything else.
This is an understanding which is not entirely rational. It does not contradict reason, but there is more too it than simply an intellectual grasp of the idea. It’s a spiritual insight which has to be received, understood and felt. This understanding precedes everything else in the Christian life, and the right response to it is repentance.
The right response to it is repentance because the understanding *is* that we need to repent. To say that “We need God” is to say that “We need to repent”. Our need for God is the need to be lifted from the state where we stand, unrepentant, as his enemies.
How do you measure a need? Generally you measure a need by the severity of the consequences if it is unmet. If you don’t have clothing you will be cold and ashamed. If you don’t have food you will starve. If you don’t have shelter you will perish from the elements. If you don’t have repentance… ?
We experience and know God’s love through his grace and through his forgiveness. (“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” Rom 5:8 NIV)
Since it’s this very same love which we are commanded to extend to our neighbors, we’re placed in a very frustrating place if we are unfamiliar with it - if we don’t have any of it to share.
The logic is simple – if we don’t understand our need for it, we can never ask for it. If we never ask for it, we will never receive it. If we never receive it, we will never have it. If we never have it, we can never share it.
The consequence of an unmet need for repentance is the restriction of our ability to experience God’s love. It is the restriction of our ability to share God’s love with others. When we try to be ‘good’ Christians or ‘good’ people without any repentance, we’re bound to be frustrated in our endeavours, because we’re not actually being good.
At the same time, it’s extremely difficult to do. It’s very simple. Anyone can do it. But it’s very difficult, because it means that we have to put our own definitions of what good and true are, and pick up the ones that God uses.