There once was a man
who had had such a wonderful experience learning of the gospel that he wanted
to share it with all those around him.
As a matter of fact, he pleaded with the Lord that he would be able to
do so. His petition to the Lord was
simple and humble and he shared with the Lord that the wish of his heart was
that he could go forth among the people, like an angel – who could cry
repentance unto the people. (See Alma 29:1)
Now imagine that being your life’s wish. To go among other people and preach
repentance. I don’t imagine that his
wish was to teach people how awful they were or to be their judge or demean
them. Rather, he that he would declare
unto every soul that they should repent and come unto God, that there might not
be more sorrow upon the earth. THAT is a
noble wish, then. Bringing people to
Christ, through repentance.
REPENTANCE – WHAT IT IS NOT
I wonder for a moment, if we were to
gauge what our initial reaction and responses are to hearing the
word "repentance" or to hearing that that is to focus of my talk today. I have found that oftentimes, there is an
immediate negative notation about the word and its meaning. I think one of the first thoughts is, “great,
another talk about all of my sins” and sometimes our mind goes directly to
those transgressions, sins or errors. It
seems that sometimes we fail to comprehend the full meaning of repentance and
the great blessings it can bring to us.
First, we need to understand that
repentance is the mechanism for personal growth and development. Now, that can sound pretty trite and
something that has been said so many times that it has lost its meaning.
Interestingly enough, the Lord is a
connoisseur of repetition. Anything that
is important for our understanding, He repeats…repeatedly.
In fact, the importance of repentance is stressed 71 times in the Doctrine and
Covenants alone!
So, I figured, before I talk about what the
TRUE Meaning of Repentance is, I should probably talk about what it is not.
Borrowing from the experiences of a
General Authority who’s assignment it was to prepare applications for
readmittance into the Church after transgression spoke of Bishops, Stake
Presidents, Husbands and Wives who petition for their loved one or ward member
with statements such as:
·
I feel he has suffered enough
·
I feel he has been punished enough
·
She has confessed everything
·
He is filled with remorse
But SUFFERING is not
repentance. Suffering comes from LACK of complete repentance.
PUNISHMENT is not repentance. Punishment FOLLOWS disobedience and
PRECEDES repentance.
CONFESSION is not repentance. Confession
is an admission of guilt that occurs AS repentance begins.
REMORSE is not repentance. Remorse
and sorrow continue because a person has NOT YET fully repented.
So if suffering, punishment, confession, remorse and sorrow
are not repentance then what IS repentance?
OLD TESTAMENT
Let’s look at the Old Testament for
a moment. The Old Testament was written
in Hebrew. The Hebrew word used to
communicate the concept of repentance is “SHUBE” (shoo-b). We can see the English meaning of the word
using a simple passage in Ezekiel that instructs what to do when a person
despairs and says, “There is nothing left for me!” “All hope is gone.” “I
can’t be forgiven!” “What purpose is left in life?” “I might as well be
dead!”
God instructs the “watchman on
the tower” to:
Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in
the death of the wicked; but that the wicked [shube, or] turn from his way and live: [shube, shube!] turn
ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O
house of Israel? [Ezekiel 33:8–11]
This beautiful passage demonstrates the kindness and tender
mercy of our Father in Heaven as he pleads with us to “SHUBE” or TURN BACK TO
HIM – to leave unhappiness, sorrow, regret and despair behind us. Repentance is a turning back to God!
NEW TESTAMENT
Now, the New Testament was written in Greek. They translated the word “shube” to a word “METANEOEO” (met-a-ne-o-e-o).
This word is two words put together.
META – metabolism, metamorphosis = REFERS TO CHANGE
The second word is a little more complicated but generally,
the letter “n” is transliterated as “pn” as in “PNEU” (new), which we use in
pneumonia, or pneumatic = all of which refer to something air filled and
can mean air, mind, thought, thinking or spirit, depending upon how it is
used.
Thus “METANEOEO” means a CHANGE OF MIND or THOUGHT or THINKING so
powerful and so strong that it changes our very way of life. To turn or change from evil to righteousness
and to God.
Now, unfortunately, only the educated people spoke Greek, so
they had to translate the work into Latin so that the common people would
understand it. However, it was this
particular word choice during this translation that would have a huge impact on
the idea of repentance for centuries.
They chose the word “POENITERE”
(po-e-ni-ter-eh). The root word “POEN” is the same in our
English language for PUNISH, PENANCE, PENITENT.
You can see how the original words that communicated the
beauty of what repentance truly is, were lost in a simple translated word and
thus many people have come to fear and dread the word repentance and consider
some form of never-ending punishment.
The true meaning of repentance is to direct the children of
God to change their lives so that they can come unto Christ and be partakers in
pure and eternal happiness.
So
let’s briefly go over this process called Repentance.
STEPS OF REPENTANCE
Most of us are probably familiar
with the often-taught steps of repentance.
They are noted in the holy scriptures, taught in lessons from the
Primary age and referred to often in other discourses. I will briefly touch upon those, but I will be adding a 4th step and, I believe, this 4th step is what makes repentance even more true and more full and more everlasting.
The three main steps of repentance
are 1) acknowledge, 2) restitution, and 3) forsake the sin.
ACKNOWLEDGE
This is generally the most difficult step in the repentance process. Here we must forget all the excuses and
finally recognize fully and exactly what we have done. Don’t say, “If I hadn’t been so angry…” or
“If my bishop had only been more understanding…” or “If my parents hadn’t been
so strict…” or “If I hadn’t been so stressed…”
Forget all such justifications and
rationalizations and simply kneel down before God and openly and honestly admit
that what you did or said was wrong. If
it needs to go to the bishop, then make an appointment and humbly seek his counsel.
As President Spencer W. Kimball counseled: Do let yourself
be troubled; let the tears flow. Do not endeavor to excuse yourself in the
least point because of your sin. Let the justice of God have full sway in your
heart so that it will bring you to the dust in humility.
Regarding the acknowledgment and
confession of a sin, he added:
There must be a consciousness of guilt. It cannot
be brushed aside. It must be acknowledged and not rationalized away. It must be
given its full importance. If it is 10,000 talents, it must not be rated at 100
pence; if it is a mile long, it must not be rated a rod or a yard; if it is a
ton transgression, it must not be rated a pound.
Stating: “Rationalizing is the bringing of ideals down to the
level of one’s conduct while repentance is the bringing of one’s conduct up to
the level of his ideals.”
RESTITUTION
In this step it is simply to “give
again that which you have robbed” or to pay back that which you have
taken. If there is something that has
been robbed that cannot be paid back, then this is where we allow the Savior to
make the repayment on our behalf and heal the other person. We then, are indebted to the Savior for his
payment – which was made on the cross.
We repay Him by following the
words of King Benjamin when he said:
And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye
may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in
the service of your God. [Mosiah 2: 17]
This means that we dedicate our lives to serving others, being
kind, thoughtful, helpful and charitable to those around us.
FORSAKE YOUR
SINS
The third step is to forsake our sins, one by one, and never
repeat them. When we do this in
sincerity and with honesty of heart, the Lord has said:
None [not even one] of
his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him: he hath done that
which is lawful and right; he shall surely live. [Ezekiel 33: 16]
Or as he said to Joseph Smith:
Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven,
and I, the Lord, remember them no more. [D&C 58:42]
There must be an
abandonment of the transgression. It must be genuine and consistent and
continuing. The Lord said in 1832: “… go your
ways and sin no more; but unto that soul who sinneth shall the former sins return,
saith the Lord your God.” (D&C 82:7.)
And a
temporary, momentary change of life is not sufficient.
Alma said:
“Do not suppose, because it has been spoken concerning restoration,
that ye shall be restored from sin to happiness. Behold, I say unto you,
wickedness never was happiness.” (Alma 41:10).
It stands to
reason that the more serious the sin, the longer it takes to complete the
repayment.
It takes
time for repentance to be final.
This brings
me to the 4th step to Repentance – that of FORGIVENESS
Of course, this refers to both forgiving others as well as
forgiving ourselves.
True repentance is to forgive all others. One cannot be forgiven
so long as he holds grudges against others. He must be, as Alma declared “merciful
unto [his] brethren; deal justly, judge righteously, and do good continually.
…” (Alma 41:14.)
Forgiveness, of course, requires the Atonement.
Story of Idaho Falls: There is an area where several major city beautification
projects took place and included an airport and a park. All of the ground upon which they were built
used to be sanitary landfills. A sanitary landfill is where garbage is
buried between layers of earth. And
often times the land is RECLAIMED. “Reclaim” means to “recall from
wrong or improper conduct…to rescue from an undesirable state.”
Now let’s say a person who had been living in Idaho Falls for
nearly 50 years feels like they had contributed a great deal to this garbage in
the landfill and one day decided to go to one of these new and beautiful areas
with a backhoe to dig up his garbage. I
think the people in charge would stop him immediately and would ultimately tell
him that there was no way to identify his personal garbage and that he had no
right to dig up the garbage as doing so was destroying something very beautiful
and useful that had been made out of that garbage.
Sometimes,
this is where we find ourselves, trying to dig up our old garbage once it has
been reclaimed through the power of the Atonement.
·
Is it possible to reclaim a life
that through reckless abandon has become so strewn with garbage that it is
appears this person is unforgiveable?
·
Or what about the one who is making
an honest effort but has fallen back into sin so many times that he feels that
there is no possible way to break the seemingly endless pattern?
·
Or what about the person who has
changed his life but just can’t forgive himself?
The Atonement of Jesus Christ is available to each of
us. His
Atonement is infinite. It applies to
everyone, in every situation. It can
clean, reclaim and sanctify each one of us.
President Boyd K. Packer has taught, “There is no habit, no addiction, no rebellion, no
transgression, no apostasy, no crime exempted from the promise of complete forgiveness.
That is the promise of the atonement of Christ” (“The Brilliant Morning of Forgiveness,”
Ensign, Nov. 1995, 20).
Just as the landfill requires dedicated work and attention
to apply layer after layer of reclaimed ground, our lives also require the same diligence, continually applying layer
after layer of the healing gift of repentance.
Often times, however, we feel that we do not deserve its
healing power. However, just as the
people in charge of the new beautiful grounds in Idaho Falls felt bad for
someone trying to reclaim their garbage, so does our Father in Heaven and
our Savior, Jesus Christ, feel sorrow when we choose to remain in sin, reject
the power of the Atonement and yes, even reject the need to forgive ourselves.
When we gratefully accept and use this precious gift, we can
enjoy the beauty and usefulness of our lives that God has reclaimed through His
infinite love and the Atonement of His Son, Jesus Christ.
It is my testimony that our Father in Heaven loves us
abundantly and eternally. We only see
ourselves as yesterday and today, but our Father in Heaven sees us in terms of
forever. EVERYTHING He has ever done for
us has been to help us return to Him.
I have a testimony of repentance. I know the weight of its difficulty. I know
the humility and courage it takes but more so, I know the sweet and loving
peace it brings.
More than this, I know that the power of the Atonement of
Jesus Christ is real, it is for me, it is infinite and it is available. I have seen its power in my life as well as
in the life of others. I testify to you
that if you will humbly participate in the steps of repentance, then you too
can know the true meaning of repentance, which is to feel the love of our
Father in Heaven…in the name of Jesus Christ…Amen.
References:
What is Repentance? by Spencer W Kimball
The Meaning of Repentance by Elder Theodore M. Burton
The Atonement Can Clean, Reclaim and Sanctify our Lives by Elder Shayne M. Bowen
References:
What is Repentance? by Spencer W Kimball
The Meaning of Repentance by Elder Theodore M. Burton
The Atonement Can Clean, Reclaim and Sanctify our Lives by Elder Shayne M. Bowen
