~Repentance: Myth four [pagan repentance?]~

   so, a little lax on the blogging lately? *Awkward* no comment. xD

  Anyways,
 Continuing on in the myths of Repentance. They are each so beautiful.
 Myth four: Reformation is Repentance. 
  He begins like his: Anyone can turn over a new leaf. It does not require the help of God to sin less of to sin differently. All of us are worse than we need to be, and at anytime it is possible to drop some of our worst habits and to do better than ever before. Because self-improvement, including moral reformation, is at least occasionally practiced by millions of persons with or without religious inclinations, it has been called "pagan repentance." 
   In the repentant life, this is a scary situation. Often times, when we repent, we think that any change in our lives is of God. As Mr. Roberts just said, it doesn't require Gods help to sin less. When we sin less, we think, "Oh maybe we just REALLY repented and now we know how to Repent." It has been in my experience that for Repentance, there is no 'real' way to Repent. There is only the change of heart. One of my struggles is the definition of a change of heart. Can a change of heart still be a change of heart if you felt it once? Is it not a change of heart if you fail to meet the standards of what you once felt? Those are questions I'm trying to figure out.
    But we need to consider carefully what this means for our Repentant life. Because it is true, people improve themselves all the time and it take great self-control, but it doesn't need God. You can change your whole life around and it doesn't need God! For example many people have reformed from smoking. Even if they are smoking addicts, they do turn around. It's a great accomplishment for them, and it takes a lot of self-control, but they didn't need God. You can repent for wrong deeds, like smoking, and totally leave God out of it. That's what we call 'pagan' repentance. So think about it. What IS true repentance? How do we know what true repentance it? Have we been using 'pagan' repentance?
      So I encourage you search God tonight, repent. We NEED to ask God to show us TRUE repentance. Because Repentance is BEFORE salvation. How can we have Salvation while we are using 'pagan' repentance? 
     
   Hope your day is awesome and may everything you do be for His glory.

~Hannah