Repenting Quotes & Sayings

Let your youth have free reign. It won't come again, so be bold, and no repenting. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Believing, repenting, and the like, are the product of the new nature; and can never be produced by the old corrupt nature ... as the child cannot be active in his own generation, so a man cannot be active in his own regeneration. The heart is shut against Christ: man cannot open it, only God can do it by his grace. — Thomas Boston

When we strive to keep the commandments of God, repenting of our sins and promising our best efforts to follow the Savior, we begin to grow in confidence that through the Atonement everything will be all right. — Wilford W. Andersen

True repentance is a turning from sin ... Humanly speaking, it is our small part in the plan of salvation. Our part is repenting. God will do the converting, the transforming, and the forgiving. — Billy Graham

The forgiveness of God is gratuitous liberation from guilt. Paradoxically, the conviction of personal sinfulness becomes the occasion of encounter with the merciful love of the redeeming God. "There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner repenting ... " (Luke 15:7). In his brokenness, the repentant prodigal knew an intimacy with his father that his sinless, self-righteous brother would never know. — Brennan Manning

This year - today - I am repenting of my dependence on fossil fuels. — Jim Wallis

The evangelists today are very often prepared to be anything to anybody as long as they can get somebody to the altar for something. They glibly call out: 'Who wants help? Who wants more power? Who wants a closer walk with God?' Such a sinning, repenting 'easy believeism' dishonors the blood and prostitutes the altar. We must alter the altar, for the altar is a place to die on. Let those who will not pay this price leave it alone! — Leonard Ravenhill

The sun was up, the neighborhood waking. I wiped my face clean with the back of my sleeve, the warming air soft on my wet cheeks. A prayer welled up within me, a new kind of prayer. I was done begging God to forgive me for being too bitter, too needy, too egotistical, too tired. Repenting one day for being too much, the next for not being enough.

Now I clearly understood my real offence against heaven: the stubborn refusal that every failing that I had - from the first - had been forgiven. — Bethany Pierce

I bet I've led a more virtuous life than you."
"First, darlin', that's not saying much. Second, getting to a higher spiritual level is like increasing your credit score. You get a lot more points for sinning and repenting than if you have no credit history at all."

-Ella & Jack — Lisa Kleypas

The fatal effects of sin can be removed only by the provision that God has made. The Israelites saved their lives by looking upon the uplifted serpent. That look implied faith. They lived because they believed God's word, and trusted in the means provided for their recover. So to sinner may look to Christ, and live. He receives pardon through faith in the atoning sacrifice. Unlike the inert and lifeless symbol, Christ has power and virtue in Himself to heal the repenting sinner. — Ellen G. White

Love begets love; and thus the love of Christ displayed upon the cross woos and wins the sinner and binds him repenting to the cross, believing and adoring the matchless depths of a Saviour's love. — Ellen G. White

Because of our fallen natures, we expect that we will be repenting of sin until glory. But repentance is not simply proof of failure. It is, more importantly, a sign of God's hand upon us. It is a conversion proof, as only a saved person can repent of sin. — Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Well, there is rough old Albert, as ornery as any big brother a girl could have, putting his arm around Savannah and cooing to her like a repenting hound dog, and promising her she is not common nor shameful. I watched all this and thought you just never know sometimes what's in a man's heart. When you think he is all tough nails and boards he can be different on the inside. It makes me wonder about other men I know, too. — Nancy E. Turner

How does Satan mislead us? By misquoting Scripture. By leading us astray. By getting us to make excuses instead of repenting. — John Hagee

It's not a sin! Caring for your friends feelings is not a sin! If you disappear, then Aries, myself, and everyone here will be filled with sadness! You won't be repenting your sin that way! — Hiro Mashima

When I repent, here is where it starts. I try to name my sin as honestly and as specifically as possible. Here is what repenting is not. It is not excusing my sin, minimizing my sin, it's not rationalizing my sin ... Repentance is getting painfully honest with God. — John Ortberg

The deepness and consistency of your repenting will have a direct impact on the liveliness of your faith and the brightness of your confidence. This is not because you repent so well, but because in repenting you know the darkness and trouble of your own sin, and the great work of grace in Jesus that overcomes it all. — Joe Thorn

God hates the LUKEWARM GOSPEL OF HALF-TRUTHS that is now spreading over the Globe. This gospel says, 'Just believe in Jesus and you'll be Saved. There's nothing more to it.' It ignores the Whole Counsel of God, which speaks of Repenting from former Sins, of Taking up your Cross, of being conformed to the Image of Christ by the refining work of the Holy Spirit. It is totally silent about the Reality of Hell and an After-Death Judgment. — David Wilkerson

In the new covenant, God is calling forth a spiritual nation made up of Jews and Gentiles, and all of them are regenerate and believing. There is not a godly remnant in the true church; that true church is the godly remnant. The Scriptures teach that there will always be believers and unbelievers mixed in the professing church.8 We also understand from the Scriptures and from church history that this harmful state will become more prominent when the church preaches something less than a biblical gospel and neglects church discipline. Nevertheless, the true church is made up of only those who are regenerate, repenting, and believing and who are being conformed to Christ's image. This is the major difference between the old and new covenants, and we must maintain and proclaim it. — Paul David Washer

Repenting and coming unto Christ through the covenants and ordinances of salvation are prerequisite to and a preparation for being sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost and standing spotless before God at the last day. — David A. Bednar

DON Luigi Giussani used to quote this example from Bruce Marshall's novel To Every Man a Penny. The protagonist of the novel, the abbot Father Gaston, needs to hear the confession of a young German soldier whom the French partisans are about to sentence to death. The soldier confesses his love of women and the numerous amorous adventures he has had. The young priest explains that he has to repent to obtain forgiveness and absolution. The soldier answers, "How can I repent? It was something that I enjoyed, and if I had the chance I would do it again, even now. How can I repent?" Father Gaston, who wants to absolve the man who has been marked by destiny and who's about to die, has a stroke of inspiration and asks, "But are you sorry that you are not sorry?" The young man answers impulsively, "Yes, I am sorry that I am not sorry." In other words, he apologizes for not repenting. The door was opened just a crack, allowing absolution to come in ... . — Pope Francis

Faith and repentance are the same; they are not two separate decisions. One cannot trust Christ as Savior without repenting or changing his mind. The very fact that he trusts Christ for salvation shows that he has changed his mind regarding sin, salvation, and God. — Curtis Hutson

Repenting of our sin is never despairing of our sin; it is always done in hope. — John Ortberg

Too many people think repenting means feeling terrible about something someone has done. Feeling bad is fine, and it often accompanies repentance, but repentance is not so much about what we feel but the twofold prong of owning up to our own injustices and failures to love, and starting all over by living justly and lovingly. — Scot McKnight

Do not stand still disputing about your election, but set to repenting and believing. Cry to God for converting grace. Revealed things belong to you; in these busy yourself ... Whatever God's purposes may be, I am sure His promises are true. Whatever the decrees of heaven may be, I am sure if I repent and believe I shall be saved. — Joseph Alleine

I want a human sermon. I don't care what Melchisedek, or Zerubbabel, or Kerenhappuk did, ages ago; I want to know what I am to do, and I want somebody besides a theological bookworm to tell me; somebody who is sometimes tempted and tried, and is not too dignified to own it; somebody like me, who is always sinning and repenting; somebody who is glad and sorry, and cries and laughs, and eats and drinks, and wants to fight when they are trodden on, and don't! — Fanny Fern

The gospel of Jesus Christ encompasses much more than avoiding, overcoming, and being cleansed from sin and the bad influences in our lives; it also essentially entails doing good, being good, and becoming better. Repenting of our sins and seeking forgiveness are spiritually necessary, and we must always do so. — David A. Bednar

Getting to a higher spiritual level is like increasing your credit score. You get a lot more points for sinning and repenting than if you have no credit history at all. — Lisa Kleypas

You cannot study Pleasure in the moment of the nuptial embrace, nor repentance while repenting, nor analyze the nature of humour while roaring with laughter. — C.S. Lewis

I have really sinned. I am going to pause now, and sit here on the mound repenting in deepest shame ... — Dodie Smith

Like David we have a number of self-destructive options we use to avoid repenting and admitting sin. I'll list them and let you come up with personal examples for each: deny, avoid, blame shift, rationalize, and give excuses. If you can't think of how you've used these, you may be stuck in denial! — James MacDonald

The Lord greatly loves the repenting sinner and mercifully presses him to His bosom: "Where were you, My child? I was waiting a long time for you." The Lord calles all to Himself with the voice of the Gospel, and his voice is heard in all the world: "Come to me, my sheep. I created you, and I love you. My love for you brought Me to earth, and I suffered all things for the sake of your salvation, and I want you all to know my love, and to say, like the apostles on Tabor: Lord, it is good for us to be with You." — Silouan The Athonite

(...) a course laid between the seed and the snare
marks of venerable syringes ordered
to excite the awareness of Transcendence
first and last harbour the disinfecting of exile
on the bridge no one, only me,
searching for approaches and testing traitor neurons
grading thoughts repenting in an incomprehensible tongue
and again attempting to show the splash-down of a world
which moves up and down within the walls of experience
a tragedy which travels unruffled
hell without sinners without return (...) — Dimitris Lyacos

We must beware of the Past, mustn't we? I mean that any fixing of the mind on old evils beyond what is absolutely necessary for repenting our own sins and forgiving those of others is certainly useless and usually bad for us. Notice in Dante that the lost souls are entirely concerned with their past! Not so the saved. — C.S. Lewis

How good you and I get at repenting will determine how good life is. — Neal A. Maxwell

I never drink. I cannot do it, on equal terms with others. It costs them only one day; but me three, the first in sinning, the second in suffering, and the third in repenting. — Laurence Sterne

We begin the process of being born again through exercising faith in Christ, repenting of our sins, and being baptized by immersion for the remission of sins by one having priesthood authority. — David A. Bednar

By repenting, one acknowledges them as sins-therefore not to be repeated. — C.S. Lewis

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them. — Georg C. Lichtenberg

Let us suppose that such a person began by observing those Christian activities which are, in a sense, directed towards this present world. He would find that this religion had, as a mere matter of historical fact, been the agent which preserved such secular civilization as survived the fall of the Roman Empire; that to it Europe owes the salvation, in those perilous ages, of civilized agriculture, architecture, laws, and literacy itself. He would find that this same religion has always been healing the sick and caring for the poor; that it has, more than any other, blessed marriage; and that arts and philosophy tend to flourish in its neighborhood. In a word, it is always either doing, or at least repenting with shame for not having done, all the things which secular humanitarianism enjoins. If our enquirer stopped at this point he would have no difficulty in classifying Christianity - giving it its place on a map of the 'great religions. — C.S. Lewis

You thank God [for your salvation] because you do not attribute your repenting and believing to your own wisdom, or prudence, or sound judgment, or good sense. — J.I. Packer

I," she [the Holy Spirit] opened her hands to include Jesus and Papa, "I am a verb. I am that I am. I will be who I will be. I am a verb! I am alive, dynamic, ever active and moving. I am a being verb. And as my very essence is a verb, I am more attuned to verbs than nouns. Verbs such as confessing, repenting, living, loving, responding, growing, reaping, changing, sowing, running, dancing, singing, and on and on. Humans, on the other hand, have a knack for taking a verb that is alive and full of grace and turning it into a dead noun or principle that reeks of rules. Nouns exist because there is a created universe and physical reality, but the universe is only a mass of nouns, it is dead. Unless 'I am' there are no verbs and verbs are what makes the universe alive. — Wm. Paul Young

Repenting is a gift God gives us for our own sake, not his. — John Ortberg

Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig
and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave. — William Shakespeare

I do believe that I will see the apocalypse in my lifetime. And when it comes, I'm not repenting for anything I've done. — Nate Lowman

Who is righteous? Anyone who is repenting. No matter how bad he has been, if he is repenting he is a righteous man. There is hope for him. And no matter how good he has been all his life, if he is not repenting, he is a wicked man. The difference is which way you are facing. The man on the top of the stairs facing down if much worse off than the man on the bottom step who is facing up. The direction we are facing, that is repentance; and that is what determines whether we are good or bad. — Hugh Nibley

Remember, this type doesn't really believe He'll forgive them, by repenting they are trying to earn what they do not think, in any case, He will pay. — Geoffrey Wood

I've got some repenting to do. — Tony Campolo

His eyes say quite plainly that he once trusted someone, that he has been repenting it for longer than you or I have been alive, and that he will never take the chance again. — Gene Wolfe

He would rather see you living a life that was honoring to Him, rather than making mistakes and repenting of them repeatedly. — Tim Baker

If you do bad stuff and don't repent, you go to hell," Orc said, like he was begging for a refutation.
"Yeah, well, you know what? If Howard's in hell, I guess we can all have a big get-together soon enough. a — Michael Grant

Remember also, the present is your only time to be saved. There is no believing, no repenting, no conversion in the grave
no minister will speak to you there. This is the time of conversion. — Robert Murray M'Cheyne

The truth is the real Christian experience is truly about repenting every day because there is no Christian that doesn't sin. — Stephen Baldwin

Hope Was but a timid friend;
She sat without the grated den,
Watching how my fate would tend,
Even as selfish-hearted men.
She was cruel in her fear;
Through the bars one dreary day,
I looked out to see her there,
And she turned her face away!
Like a false guard, false watch keeping,
Still, in strife, she whispered peace;
She would sing while I was weeping;
If I listened, she would cease.
False she was, and unrelenting;
When my last joys strewed the ground,
Even Sorrow saw, repenting,
Those sad relics scattered round;
Hope, whose whisper would have given
Balm to all my frenzied pain,
Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,
Went, and ne'er returned again! — Emily Bronte

Our time on earth is not well spent by counting rewards before God has given them to us, but rather, by looking for our faults and repenting of them — Dan Schilling

The tears of those repenting are the wine of angels. — Bernard Of Clairvaux

Therefore if we lack the feeling of repentance but nevertheless want to repent; if we choose repentance with the will; we are then repenting, since repentance is that choice of the will. — Peter Kreeft

That was the problem with ones actions. They would always remain 'acted'. They always remained 'being done', and their influence on the world, whether small or big , would always be palpable. You couldn't refute the past. He would always remain liable for the consequences of his actions. Should anyone knock on his door and ask for reparation, he would give what was asked of him without question. There simply was no way of clearing the world of its history, and its history was simply a compilation of the existence of people and other organisms , and their actions. Of things which had been done. — Adelheid Manefeldt

The only thing that is holding us back from repenting is ourselves. There isn't any 'buts' actually. — Norhafsah Hamid

The evidence that you truly repented long ago when you said you did is because you're still repenting now and even to a greater degree. The evidence that you believed a long time ago is that you're still believing now and ever more believing in greater and greater degrees. — Paul Washer

Overcomers are not perfect. They fail just like the rest of us, but they keep on getting up, keep on repenting, and keep on being willing to surrender themselves to Christ and letting Him, who is the only perfect One, work through them. — Nancy Missler

Judas does not love. He does not love and that is why he betrays. He does not love, and that is why, having cast aside treason because it horrifies him, he ends by detesting himself without repenting. Self-hatred is salutary only when associated with the love of God. Alone it is homicidal; it has the power to destroy everything and it has no power at all to repair. — Antonin Sertillanges