According to Hebrews 6:1-3, repentance is one of the most elementary doctrines of the church, yet as a pastor, I am often surprised by how little people seem to know about real repentance.I cannot remember the last time I heard it clearly laid out clearly in a sermon, other than to say that we should do it. While we have become fairly good at acknowledgingour sins, but we are not that great at repenting. I often hear Christians acknowledging wrongdoing, both to God, to themselves, and sometimes even to each other, but if repentance were a mile-long journey down the road, acknowledgment would only be the first step; asking for forgiveness would be another step, but neither of these are all there is to repentance.

 

      I have heard people say, “so-and-so has repented”, because they went forward to ask for forgiveness, but they have not had time to repent. As you will see from in this study booklet, real repentance often takes time. 

   

   Christians often confuse the issues of asking for forgiveness with repentance. The proof that we have not repented lies in the fact that we repeatedly ask God for forgiveness while continuing to do what we have acknowledged as being wrong in the first place. In Luke 3:1-14, John described repentance as doing the opposite of what they were doing wrong.

 

    In this little booklet, we explore what repentance looks like in real life. You may find that the reason we keep doing what we are doing is because we have not repented in the first place. 

 

This booklet is a companion to Shipwrecked on the Way to Heaven. 

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