Repent, not Repeat

Ephesians 2:8-9

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not of works, lest anyone should boast.

I love these verses. The gift of faith is something that has always fascinated me. I would read these verses in Ephesians, and then I would hear someone say that they need more faith to believe in this or that. Or with all the best intentions a person will say to someone that they should have faith about a situation. This sounds like a great thing for a Christian to say on the surface, but my question is this: If faith is a gift from God, how can we talk about it as if it is something that is measurable? That doesn’t seem right to me.

I know that it was only through the gift of faith given to me by God that I was able to accept and believe in Jesus Christ the Messiah and His sacrifice for me. Ephesians says it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast… what that is saying to me is that faith is not measurable… Faith just IS. If faith was measurable, I would be able to say that I have more faith than the next person, and that would be boasting… but Paul clearly says here that God designed faith so that no one can boast in it. It comes solely from God and is the same for me as it is for you, as it is for the beggar down the street.

I do believe that we can lose our faith, though. I believe that if all we have done is profess our faith, but have never really grabbed hold and let that faith dwell within us, we can just as easily let go of that faith. Professing is easy, living it daily is not.

John the Baptist cried out for all to “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” (Matthew 3:2). What does it mean to repent? Does it mean that we simply profess the sinful life we are living and acknowledge that it’s wrong? No. To repent means to change our mind about the sin in our life. It means to change our way of thinking. Simply acknowledging our sin is not enough, we must take hold of (possess) that gift of faith that God so freely gives.  Once we accept that faith and through that faith we believe in Jesus we can not help but repent and turn from our ways and begin to live like believers in Christ.

I know that I spent a good portion of my life believing that I had faith, and that I had encountered and accepted Jesus Christ. However, I never possessed that faith, I merely professed it. So after I repented, I eventually went back and repeated the things my sinful nature led me to do, which eventually led me to turn from God altogether. For nearly 10 years I turned my back on God.

When I finally turned back around and the Father welcomed back His prodigal daughter, I once again accepted the gift of faith from Him. This time, however, I possessed it. I took hold of it and let it dwell within me. I encountered Christ like I never had before because I had fully taken hold of that gift of faith. And this time, because of that faith and because of that encounter with Christ, I repented for real. I turned from all that was sinful in my life and wanted nothing more to do with it. I did not repeat those same mistakes… I allowed God to take those things from my life once and for all, with the understanding that I couldn’t conquer them alone. It was only through God that I was able to truly repent – to truly change my way of thinking.

For once we truly encounter the love of Christ, we can never be the same. Through the gift of faith we can experience Jesus in a transforming way that had nothing to do with us and everything to do with the power of the Holy Spirit. And the repentance that comes form this encounter is not of our own doing, but is miraculous and supernatural and unavoidable.

What do you think? Am I way off base? Do you think that it’s possible to truly take possession of the gift of faith and encounter Jesus, and yet continue to repeat the same sins and live the same sinful life? Or do you think that with a true encounter with Christ that real repentance takes place and we don’t want to return to our old sinful ways?