My pastor recently shared the allusion that repentance and faith are like two pedals of a bicycle, that we must intentionally work back and forth constantly to keep moving forward in our journey towards Christ. He also presented the challenge to consider whether there had been true repentance versus just continuing on in life, reminding me that repentance isn’t just turning away from sin, but turning toward God. Too often we treat repentance as a one time thing at the moment of conversion to faith, then tend to think that the work is complete and we simply now live “in Christ.”

That’s just not how it works. We all still stumble and fall and commit sins; what matters is what we do with that continued sin. Does it mean you aren’t a true follower of Christ if you still err? No, don’t let worldly thinking tell you that. Do you love your sin still, or champion sin in others, as we’re seeing with some celebrity personas right now? Well, that’s not the mark of a true believer, yet when it is pointed out to you, you again have a choice to commit your heart to the Lord. Our ears should all frequently hear the echo of Nathan to King David, “You are the man!” when Nathan challenged him for his sins, supposedly done in secret, yet with devastating public consequences, to which David appropriately broke down and cried out, “I have sinned against the Lord!”

Only one man has been above sin in this world. And more sin requires more repentance. While we live in this fallen world, we will be faced with this need over and over again. Finish your race well. Would that we all respond to our sins being revealed to us in the way King David did.

I have a few friends who swear they pray a prayer of repentance every morning, but their lives do not reflect any remorse for the things they have done. And some of these are practitioners of works-based justification! If this is pointed out to them, they become irate, claiming it is between them and God. I have even heard other believers avidly state, “I agree that what you are saying is the right thing to do, but I am not going to do it.” Don’t shirk true repentance when the need is revealed to you. It isn’t simply words you say only to God, then go about living your life the way you always have, since we will all face the judgment throne one day, and the thought of choosing to live in sin and knowing we will have to face Him should leave us terrified.

And yet we’ve been forgiven, if we have faith in the saving grace of Jesus. There is that comfort–that we are not our own, but belong body and soul, in life and in death, to our faithful Savior Jesus Christ.

So this begs a question: why do we repent to God? Why is it important to do, once we are saved, knowing that we are forgiven and Jesus has already paid the price for those sins? Is it just to check a box that we have “done the right thing” in actually saying it to God? That can’t be, because that’s just another way to make it about us fallen folks and our efforts which remain insufficient. I would say that by earnestly acknowledging to God that we are sinners puts us in right relationship to Him, recognizing that He is Lord of all, and just how much we need His grace and mercy daily. It is more than simply words, but should so rack our bodies with remorse that it causes us to cry out to God with humility and longing for Him to change our hearts to seek and be more like Him. To not have this response is to incur more guilt and judgment that we must later account to God for, and the thought of choosing to live in sin and knowing we will have to face Him should be more than we can bear. For we too, I too, have sinned against the Lord and it brings me to my knees.

So another question: why should we not treat other people in the same way when we have also sinned against them? If we also seek to be in right relationship with our friends, family, colleagues, others, do they not also deserve to know that we as Christians will hold ourselves accountable for our actions and seek to make up for what we have done?

When I was young, my dad once had me make a list of everyone who had been hurt by something I did. He helped fill in the list so I could see just how large of an impact a single choice could have, the ways sin ripples out and touches the lives of others you never even considered. If we take our time to truly consider the far-reaching impacts of our sin, the ways it has tainted our life and that of others we love and some we don’t even know, it should bring us to our knees. Then the ones we are able to reach deserve to hear that we recognize what we have done and would like to restore the relationship. Sorry shouldn’t just happen inside our head if we have the opportunity to speak it aloud.

There have been many opinions about the “What Would Jesus Do?” slogan popularized a few decades ago, but what I’ve always found to be a more fitting question is to instead ask “What would I do if this were Jesus I was doing it to?”. As Jesus said in Matthew 25, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” This can apply to acts of kindness or ill treatment alike. That sin you’re refusing to change in your life, to apologize for, or attempt to make amends that you have done to someone in your life–it is as if you did it to Him. Would you still have done it if you had Him in mind? We all fail at this daily, this pausing to ask these two questions, but what we can do is repent and apologize after the fact, then earnestly seek the transformation of our hearts to move forward in a way that would be pleasing to God.

Sometimes we must ride our bicycles up a steep path, and those pedals–faith, repentance, faith, repentance, faith, repentance–get hard to push. And we can’t really ride a bicycle well if we only push one pedal and ignore the other. Sometimes the faith pedal is more challenging, and sometimes the repentance pedal hurts to lean into. If facing your sins and pushing the repentance pedal seems difficult to bear, I pray that the good news of the faith pedal refreshes your spirit. Keep pedaling forward; finish the race well.