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Repentance

There are many stories in the Bible where people go from destruction to restoration. And the one thing that connects these two is “repentance.” There can never be restoration without repentance. And there cannot be repentance without seeking God.

Let’s look at the story of King David in the Scriptures. David was the King of Israel, one of the greatest kings in history. God had made him a champion. Thousands of people in his kingdom would follow him into victory. Yet one day he decides to not go to the battlefield. By staying home, he decides to stop moving forward. There he opens himself up to be tempted by the enemy. When we lose the capacity and the intensity of pushing forward, we are already going backward. The best defense we have spiritually is a good offense. 

How can we overcome the sin we struggle with? We need to repent, get rid of it, lay it down at the cross, and get involved in the ministry and the work of Jesus. We need to get aggressive about doing something for God. When we are on the offense, we have a great defense. David quit playing offense and then found he was not strong enough to play defense. The day he decided to stay home is the day he sees and lusts for the naked woman who was his neighbor. He sends his servants to get her, sleeps with her, gets her pregnant, and then sends her husband to die on the battlefield. He did all of this thinking no one would ever find out.

Often, we forget that God is watching everything we do. David certainly forgot. Yet there was a man of God named Nathan to whom God spoke about what David had done. So Nathan comes to David and confronts him. David then realizes that nothing is hidden from the Lord, and he repents before God. God hears David’s prayer and his cry. Though there are consequences for his sins—the Lord tells him through Nathan that his son is going to die—God forgives and restores David. After the death of his son, the Lord gives him another child, called Solomon, who would be David’s successor. 

Repentance is confessing our sins and turning away from them. It is not a one-time thing. It is done many times, over and over. It continues in our lives as we walk in brokenness and contrition. Only through repentance God can bring restoration into our lives.