What repentance is not

I have found that in most churches in the USA today the word repentance is seldom, if ever mentioned.

It's a word that has been dropped from the Christian vocabulary because it is a little too harsh, like the word sin.

I had an experience as a young Christian that I too, having grown up in the nominal church, had no idea what repentance meant.

In the spring of 1971, Ruth, the boys, and I were living in Southern California where I was teaching school. I had been a Christian for about four years and had felt a stirring, if you will, that the Lord was somehow encouraging me to devote my life to missions. We had applied to Wycliffe Bible Translators to study linguistics at the University of Washington, Seattle for that summer.

The classes were taught by Bible translators who came home for the summer to teach at the University. The teachers as well as the students lived in a couple of sorority houses just across the street from the campus. I can still remember listening to some of the stories that the teachers would tell as we took our meals together and fellowshipped together.

One missionary from Southern Mexico told a story one evening that I never forgot.

He had translated the book of Luke and had the translation ready to go to the printer. He was reading back some of the portions of the book to his helper who was a native from a tribe who spoke the language he was translating. He came to the word that he had chosen for the word repentance and he asked his language helper to tell him what this word meant. The native said that this word meant when a man was walking down a jungle trail and he hears that up ahead along the trail some men are lying in ambush waiting to kill him. Upon hearing this, the man fearing for his life, turns around and goes back the other way.

This is the word that he had used to translate repentance. Suddenly he realized that he had chosen the wrong word. He called and had the printing process stopped so he could edit it.

Now, I have thought a lot about that story over the years and I have come to the realization that what most Christians believe repentance is relates to the man walking down the jungle trail.

Repentance means to turn your life around and in effect follow the Lord, but not for the above reason, not in fear for your life.

I believe that real repentance is when one comes to the realization that he or she is indeed going down the wrong path in life and they are living in sin. Their sins have separated them from God and they need to turn away from them and ask Jesus to forgive them and now serve Him instead of serving themselves.

I don't believe that anyone gets saved because of his or her fear of going to hell. Hell, fire, and damnation preaching never saved anyone. Repentance is when we come to the realization that your life and the direction of your life is not pleasing to God and then you turn around and after asking forgiveness, serve Him and His agenda, and no longer pursue yours.

In Revelation 21:8 we have a list of those people who will not be in Heaven and the first one on the list is the "?Fearful.? I honestly believe that the reason that some churches are full of people is because of the threat of Hell that the church holds over them. Are these people attending church because they have truly repented, or are they fearful of the punishment for not being there?

Is this just a one time thing? Absolutely not, we need to make corrections frequently as we walk along this trail we call life.