TRUE REPENTANCE

Sin is a plague, yea, the greatest and most infectious plague in the world; and yet, ah! how few are there that tremble at it, that keep at a distance from it!

—Thomas Brooks

How often do we weep for the sin in our lives? Does it bother us as much for the small sins or the more visable and big sins? Sin is sin no matter how big or small it is. We sometimes take granted what the Lord did on the cross, we tell a little white lie and that's seems to be ok for some, yet Jesus died for that little white lie. We say we have christian liberties, but to be truthful do we really need to have them, I am speaking to myself too. Do we weep for our sins, do we go before the throne and cry out to our Lord for forgiveness and do we repent. Some say we do not need to repent when we get saved. I say hogwash! When the Lord opens your heart you see your heart and how filthy and dirty and depraved it is and the first thing you do is repent, how can you not? You say What a wretched man am I! Lord forgive me. There should be tears of joy and tears of sorrow because you see the wretchedness in you and at the same time you see the joy of your salvation.

Sin is a turning the back upon God--and the face
towards hell. Repentance is a turning the back
upon sin--and a setting the face towards God!
True repentance includes . . .
a true sense of sin,
a deep sorrow for sin,
a hearty loathing of sin, and
a holy shame and blushing for sin.

To repent is to make . . .
a clean head and a clean heart;
a clean lip and a clean life.

To repent is for a man to loathe himself, as well as his sin.
Is this easy for man, who is so great a self-lover, and so
great a self-exalter, and so great a self-admirer—to
become a self-loather? To repent is to cross sinful self,
it is to walk contrary to sinful self, yes, it is to revenge
a man's self upon himself.

True repentance lies in a daily dying to sin, and in a
daily living to Him who lives forever.


Thomas Brooks