Repentance is a word we don’t hear very much about in today’s Christian environment but it is a word heavily used in scripture. To repent means that we feel sorry for our sins; sorry enough to decide to change our way of living and thinking and sorry enough to turn from following self to following Christ. In other words, it is all about change.

In the book of Acts it tells us that repentance is not an option but that God commands us to repent. When Jesus started His preaching ministry it is said that he preached, " Repent for the kingdom of God is near." When John the Baptist started his ministry his words were identical to those of Christ. John was beheaded because of his insistence on this message. When the New Testament church started, the first message by Peter was, "Repent and be baptized." Jesus went as far as to say that we either must repent or end up perishing; I believe He was speaking of hell.

When someone comes to Christ to be saved it means more than shaking the preachers hand, more than walking to the front of the church and more than just saying one wants to join the church. It even means more than letting someone pray over you or even praying a prayer telling God you want to accept Christianity. We must pray a true sinners prayer that includes telling God how sorry we are for our past sins and a willingness to let God help us to stop doing those sins.

In our political world we hear a lot about the need for change but the truth is that in the spiritual world that’s exactly what God desires and requires. The question of the day is, "Do you truly want to change and are you willing to let God help you to do so?"