“Jesus answered them: It is not the healthy that
need a doctor, but the sick; I have not come to
invite virtuous people, but to call sinners to
repentance” ~ Luke 5:31-32

Lent is the season of the church when special attention is given to the movement of mind and spirit known as repentance. In popular usage and in many dictionaries, repentance is equated with self-reproach. Being penitent means being remorseful for misdeeds. The biblical concept of repentance, however, runs much deeper than that, Repentance is not just “feeling sorry”, but turning back to God. This is consistent with the Bible’s view that sin is not so much a particular act of wrongdoing as a state of alienation from God.

There is a prayer of confession which we have prayed from time to time, which, in part, goes like this: “We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts … We have left undone things which we ought to have done, and done things which we ought not have done.” In the teaching of Jesus the root cause of sin in putting anything or anyone ahead of God on our schedule of concerns.

The Bible lays down only one condition for repentance: the sinner must acknowledge, without rationalization or self-justification, that he has drifted away from God and turn back contritely to re-establish the close Child-to-Father relationship which has been impaired by inattention or disobedience. God does not require the penitent sinner to grovel in remorse or to make amend.