Repentance: The Word No One Wants to Hear (And Why That Might Be the Problem)
Repentance.
Just saying the word makes people wince. It conjures images of street-corner preachers with megaphones, finger-wagging moralists, or that aunt who always seems to know exactly what’s wrong with your life choices.
It’s a term most often associated with morality and a person’s choices in relation to their actions—how they impact others through their behaviors. And let’s be honest: it’s not a popular word in contemporary culture. We’ve tossed it aside as a leftover, obsolete term from antiquity.
Perhaps this was the case in previous generations as well. Maybe resistance to repentance is as old as humanity itself.
Because here’s the thing: no one likes being told what to do—especially when it impacts our daily preferences and choices. “I should be able to determine right and wrong for myself,” we think. “How I feel is what really matters.”
From our earliest days, we’ve operated as if the universe exists to serve our pleasures, no matter how our choices impact others. We may not say this out loud, but our behaviors reveal what we truly believe.
But what if we’ve completely misunderstood what repentance actually is?
What Repentance Really Means
The Lexham Bible Dictionary defines repentance as “an event in which an individual attains a divinely provided new understanding of their behavior and feels compelled to change that behavior and begin a new relationship with God.”
Another prevalent definition describes it as “to turn away from, or do a complete 180 in the opposite direction from the way you were previously heading.”
Notice what’s missing from these definitions: condemnation. Shame. Divine anger looking for an excuse to punish.
Instead, repentance is about turning—from destruction toward life, from slavery toward
freedom, from death toward wholeness.
Paul understood this distinction when he wrote to the Corinthians: “Yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death” (2 Corinthians 7:9-10).
There’s a sorrow that leads to life and a sorrow that leads to death. One is transformative; the other is merely regret with nowhere to go.
The Doctor Analogy
Here’s what strikes me as strange about our resistance to repentance: we don’t apply this same logic to other areas of life.
We go to doctors because doctors are trained to understand the human body and disease better than we do. When a physician tells us we need to change our diet, exercise more, or take medication, we don’t accuse them of being judgmental killjoys trying to ruin our fun. We recognize they’re trained professionals who want us to flourish.
We try to abide by traffic lights at intersections because we understand they were put there to protect us from oncoming traffic—not just to inhibit our happiness. Sure, occasionally we’re frustrated when we’re in a hurry and hit every red light. But we don’t conclude that traffic engineers hate us and want to make our lives miserable.
We exercise and try to eat healthy foods and get proper rest because we’ve been taught that these practices will help us live happier and perhaps longer lives. We don’t view the person who encourages us toward health as a tyrant imposing arbitrary rules.
So here’s the question: What if God not only designed science with laws that help our flourishing, but He also designed morality for our benefit and that of those around us?
What if His call to repentance flows from His love rather than His irritation with us?
What if the Bible is not aimed at inhibiting our joy but guiding us toward experiencing “the abundant life” Jesus promised?
The Destructive Pathway We Choose
I think of a friend I met years ago—let’s call him David. Brilliant guy, successful career, but he confided in me that he was trapped in an affair that was destroying his marriage. When I gently confronted him, David’s response was immediate and defensive: “You can’t tell me what to do with my life. This makes me happy. You don’t understand.”
I told him he needed to end it immediately and confess to his wife, or I would have to tell her myself. He was furious. He accused me of being judgmental, of not understanding love, of trying to control his life.
He was right about one thing: the affair did make him happy. For a while.
But within weeks, his wife discovered the truth on her own. The marriage ended. His kids stopped speaking to him. The affair partner moved on. David sat in a coffee shop months later telling me, “I destroyed everything that mattered for something that felt good in the moment.”
That’s the pathway we choose when we reject the call to turn around—not because God is eager to punish us, but because certain roads simply lead to destruction. It’s not arbitrary. It’s reality.
Jesus himself pointed to this when he said, “The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here” (Matthew 12:41).
The people of Nineveh—pagans who didn’t know the God of Israel—heard a call to turn from their destructive ways and they responded. They recognized that continuing on their current path would lead to ruin. And they were saved not through their perfection but through their willingness to turn.
The Idols We Create
Here’s what repentance ultimately addresses: God calls us to turn to Him, away from our self-destructive practices. But it’s even more than that.
He calls us away from anything we lean on instead of Him—the idols we create, the false gods we serve. They might be careers we’ve made ultimate, relationships we’ve turned into saviors, substances we use to numb pain, or achievements we believe will finally make us worthy.
These are fragile, fleeting, unreliable gods. They will ultimately fail us.
This is even true—especially true—if the one we make into god is ourselves.
I have a coin from ancient Rome. On one side, the image of Caesar. On the other, various symbols of Roman power and prosperity. The Romans believed their empire would last forever, that Caesar was divine, that Roman might and wisdom could solve any problem.
History rendered its verdict on that belief.
Every substitute god we create will eventually crumble. Not because God is jealous in a petty sense, but because we were designed to find our life, our purpose, our identity in relationship with Him. Anything less leaves us empty, grasping, anxious.
NT Wright puts it this way: when Jesus announced, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” he wasn’t primarily talking about individual moral improvement. He was announcing that God’s reign—God’s way of ordering reality—had broken into the world through him. The appropriate response wasn’t guilt but recognition: “Oh, this is what I was made for. This is the life I’ve been searching for.”
Our Heavenly Father’s Heart
Here’s what we miss when we misunderstand repentance: our heavenly Father wants to give us the good life. He is not a killjoy. He’s not a cosmic policeman looking for excuses to write tickets.
He’s the loving parent who sees the toddler running toward the street and calls out, “Stop!
Turn around! Come back!”
Not because He hates the child’s independence or joy, but because He knows what’s coming and the child doesn’t.
JI Packer wrote that we only understand the love of God when we understand both His holiness and His mercy. God’s call to repentance flows from both—His holiness that cannot deny reality (certain paths lead to death) and His mercy that provides a way back (turn to me and live).
Repentance leads to life. Not just any life—the abundant life Jesus promised. The life you were designed for. The life where freedom replaces bondage, where peace replaces anxiety, where purpose replaces aimlessness.
The Invitation
So let me ask you: Are there unhelpful practices or lifestyle choices that you need to turn from toward Jesus?
Maybe it’s an addiction that’s slowly destroying you. Maybe it’s bitterness you’ve nursed for years. Maybe it’s the relentless pursuit of success that’s cost you your family. Maybe it’s cynicism that’s isolated you from genuine community. Maybe it’s pride that keeps you from admitting you need help.
What’s holding you back from turning around?
Is it fear of what you’ll lose? Fear of what others will think? Fear that God won’t actually accept you if you come? Fear that you’ve gone too far, that it’s too late?
Here’s what Peter proclaimed in the earliest days of the church: “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19).
Blotted out. Not remembered against you. Not held over your head. Not used as leverage. Erased.
That’s the promise attached to repentance. Not condemnation, but freedom. Not shame, but restoration. Not death, but life.
The God who designed you, who knows every cell in your body and every thought in your mind, who understands what will make you flourish and what will destroy you—that God is calling you to turn toward Him.
Not because He’s angry. Because He loves you.
Not because He wants to control you. Because He wants to free you.
Not because He’s a killjoy. Because He’s the source of all true joy.
The question isn’t whether you’ve done things that require turning around. We all have. The
question is whether you’ll respond to the invitation to come home.
What are you turning from today? And more importantly, who are you turning toward?
