Christian Repentance

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Yesterday, I received a text from the RV service center that was doing maintenance on our travel trailer. They had finished, and the trailer was ready to be picked up. I arrived, paid the bill, and hooked my pickup to the trailer. As I was pulling out, I took the right turn a little too tight and clipped the corner of the overhanging portion of another building. As I was driving down the street, I got a call from the service center saying that I had damaged the side of the trailer. On my way back, I pulled off onto the side of the road and looked at the damage; it was bad. I returned the trailer to the service center and then walked over to the business whose roof I had clipped. Thankfully that damage was pretty minor. However, I was quite upset at the damage to my travel trailer.

As I was sitting in my office this morning, I was thinking about how this relates to how we deal with sin as Christians. John writes in 1 John 1:8, "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us." Imagine if I had continued driving and either ignored the service center's call or denied that my trailer had been damaged. I would be deceiving myself and denying the truth. John goes even further in verse 10, "If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him [Jesus Christ] a liar and His word is not in us." If I had told the service manager who called me about the damage that he was wrong, I would have been calling him a liar. We do similar things when we deny that we sin and refuse to recognize our sin when it is pointed out to us.

When I received the call about the damage to my trailer, I turned around and returned to the place that could repair it, but this meant that I had to recognize that my trailer had been damaged. The same thing is true when we sin. We must acknowledge that we have sinned and return to the One who can make things right. Again John writes in verse 9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

I don't know whether or not the damage to my trailer will be repairable or not, but I do know that when I confess my sins to God that my relationship with Him will be restored. Why? Because of what we find in 1 John 2:1-2, "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world." So when you sin (and we all will until we stand perfected in glory), make a quick turn and go back to Christ who alone is able to renew and restore each of us because of His work on the cross.