Highlight: A life of repentance

As followers of Christ, we are called to live a life of repentance. But what does that look like? According to Professor Mark Muska, many Christians know they should repent of their sins, but aren’t exactly sure where to start. He provides a definition for the word repent,

“The word itself means to have a fundamental change of mind about the way you’re thinking about something. In this case, we’re thinking about ourselves, our relationship with God, and the sin that blocks that relationship with God.”

“When someone repents of their sin they’re saying, ‘I’m not going to make excuses for this anymore. I’ve had a change of mind about this, it’s wrong; it’ll never be right; it’s always wrong. I’m not going to blame others. I’m not going to rationalize it.’”

Repentance requires us to change the way we think and confess our thoughts to God. Professor Brad Sickler points out a correlation between repentance and confession of sins.

“It’s hard to repent of your sin without actually also confessing it to the Lord.”

Professor Sickler adds that repentance is meant to be a way of life for Christians, rather than a one-time event. He refers to the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:9-13,

“This attitude of repentance as being part of what it means to receive Christ, and then an ongoing practice as Jesus said, “when you pray, pray ‘forgive us our sins,’ and ‘here are my sins, Lord, and I lay these before you. I ask for your help.’”

“Confession is a part of daily discipleship”.

We need to continually lay our sins before God in order to live a life of repentance and receive His promise of purification.

 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9


Ask the Professor: On the third Thursday of every month we invite Bible professors from the University of Northwestern into the studio and open the phone lines for your questions on the Bible, faith, and the church. Call in during the live show, or submit your questions via email on Connecting Faith’s show page.

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