I heard a great sermon last semester from the Bishop of the Methodist church in Indiana (I'm still not sure how the Bishop thing works in the Methodist church, so I'm not sure if that is his exact title...)
He spoke on the different ways we can approach our shortcomings and mistakes. In our culture, we see a lot of people approach their mistakes with remorse. Remorse allows you to live in the guilt. It is a burden that grows daily. Remorse isn't all bad, but it often allows us to live in the past. It allows us to fixate on that shortcoming or mistake. Celebrity remorse is very evident. We see the actor or the singer that drinks a little too much and acts out in public - they apologize, and they feel badly - but then they make headlines a year later for the same offense.
The Bishop then talked about repentance and what it looks like to live repented. He illustrated it as a complete 180 turn. A new direction.
If you look up the repentance in the dictionary, remorse is right in the definition. This may be bold of me to say so, but the dictionary got it wrong.
In Acts, we have this even bolder statement:
"Repent therefore, and turn again that your sins may be blotted out." Acts 3:19
Turn again. Turn around. In our faith, repentance has a different definition. Repentance means that we acknowledge our shortcomings and wrongdoings, and we live a life where we strive not to repeat them.
Romans 6 begins like this: "What shall we say then, are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? How can we who died to sin still live in it?"
Repentance is a forward motion. Repentance is a part of our lifestyle as followers of Christ. Repentance is our willingness to accept God's grace and to continue living in that grace.
So in these season and furthermore, may we all strive to live repented.
~SP
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