Change your mind

Repentance. What does it mean? In a word, it means to return. The Hebrew word for repentance, teshuva, means to turn. It can mean to turn your face, turn your back on, or simply to return to an old way. It was used a lot in the prophetic writings to describe how the nation of Israel returned from the exile.

In the New Testament, written in Greek, the word is metanoeo, which literally means to change one’s mind. A change. A turn. That’s what repentance is all about.

The biblical writers loved language and grammar and words. But more than that, they loved stories. Jesus loved stories. One story, in particular, describes repentance without ever explaining its doctrine.

In Luke 15, Jesus tells three stories, actually. The first is about a lost sheep and the second is about a lost coin. Both are found by their owners who then celebrate their return. The last of the three stories is the most detailed but has the same theme. A return of what was lost.

There was a young man who desired to be free from his father’s grasp. So, he requested to be given an advance of his share of the inheritance, one-third of all his father owned. Then the young son ran off to the city, where he spent all he had. One day he awoke to find himself wallowing among the pigs, his stomach empty and his heart broken. He turned his face back to his father’s home and headed off.

When his father saw him from afar, he didn’t wait with arms folded or put a stern look on his face. Instead, he ran to his son and embraced him. The celebration was on. What was lost is now found!

The son’s actions here underscore the two processes of repentance we talked about this week. First, he changed his mind. Luke writes that he “came to his senses.” The first step in repentance is to make up our minds that we no longer want what we have. We thought we did, but now we find those cravings and desires empty. We make up our mind that we want to go back.

Repentance involves changing our minds about God. We shift from transactional to relational. It’s not about how we can sway him or turn him. It’s that we simply turn back to him. It’s the true longing of our hearts, to be with him. Sin clouds that longing. But when we fully understand our God, we see that he has a longing too, to be with us. And his longing is never clouded because he is sinless.

We also have to change our minds about ourselves, from accident to intention. When we find ourselves in a mess we are tempted to think we are messed up. When we make a mistake, we think that we are the mistake. When we fail, we think we are a failure. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The next step, he changed his direction. It took action on his part, a turning to the path that led back home. That part of repentance is the hardest. We can all decide we want to change our lives, but putting that into action takes guts, it takes determination, it takes perseverance. It’s tough.

But the truth is, it’s not up to us. Repentance is a grace, a gift from the father. The father didn’t stand waiting for the son to complete the act of repentance. He ran to him, embracing him and helping him through those final steps of repentance. That’s the picture of God, our father. We may have turned from him, but he never turned away from us.

Seeing God clearly means that we see ourselves through unclouded eyes. We know who we are in Christ – a child of God. And then we live that out, through love. We love God. We love ourselves. And we love others.

That love of others may be the most important part of repentance. The older son refused to love. When the party was on, he turned away. He wanted his young, irresponsible brother punished not praised. In the end, it’s his lack of love that is front and center.

True repentance is not fully accomplished until we come to a place of radical love. Love for our God. Love for ourselves. But also, love of others. Including our enemies, as Jesus put it. When we return to God and find his grace, it should spur us to show even more grace. If we don’t, then we need to turn again to a God with open arms, running after those who have run from him.