By Brother Michel Lankford
My guess is that you are probably judging your repentance based on how you FEEL, more than you are basing it on your CHOICES and your ACTIONS. So you feel powerless to change; because your feelings go up down all the time.
From the biblical point of view, genuine repentance has more to do with the CHOICE of your WILL, followed by your ACTIONS, more then it has anything to do with how you FEEL about anything. That is the key difference between Greco-Roman thinking, which is based on theoretical ideas, feelings, and emotions, as opposed to biblical Hebraic thinking, which is based on choices of our will, followed by concrete physical behaviors.
Repent
To repent; (in Hebrew: TESHUVAH= Literally to destroy or to forsake your own sinful ways, and to RETURN to YHWH Almighty God and to HIS ways);
in Greek: METANOEÔ.
* To CHANGE one’s MIND
* To CHANGE one’s PURPOSES and INTENTIONS
* & to CHANGE one’s DIRECTION and BEHAVIORS
AWAY FROM what YHWH considers to be SIN, and then to RETURN TO what YHWH considers to be RIGHTEOUS.
Unless we progressively do those things, we are NOT repenting.
I mean, it’s nice if the feelings of repentance are actually there. The feelings can make the actions of repentance EASIER, but the feelings do not make the repentance valid or invalid one way or the other. At the same time, if you believe that your sincerity really is not there, then confess that too, and ask God to change your heart and desires to agree with Him. After all, lack of sincerity is no different than any other sin. You confess and practice the actions of repenting from that, the same way that you would repent from any other wrongdoing. Then continue making the choices and doing the actions of repentance, and your feelings will catch up eventually, the more you practice repenting biblically.
You are not beyond all hope of repenting. Otherwise, you would not be asking the question. You obviously desire to repent, to be saved, and to do right.
However, you MUST STOP waiting until you FEEL good about doing the right thing before you choose to act. Make the decision about what the right thing to do is. Create an action plan to do the right thing. Make the willful choice of your will to carry out your action plan. Persevere in carrying out your action plan until your life changes to match the right decision that you made at the beginning. Your feelings may not even change until the middle or the end of that process. Good feelings catch up and come along after you have started doing the right things.
If you wait until you FEEL repentant before you do the actions of repenting, then you will NEVER repent successfully. If you gauge reality by how you FEEL before you do the right things, the enemy of your soul will forever make sure that you never feel good enough to do the repenting actions. The devil will make sure that your feelings are forever in turmoil, so that you do not feel the energy to repent. The devil wants you to stay a slave to that sin. Don’t fall for that evil scheme. Make the decision. Do the repenting actions. Understand that your thoughts and feelings will follow along afterward.
Shalom
Brother Michel Lankford