That’s what I thought, after months of going to church, listening to different versions of sermons about the same handful of verses. I would look at all the people around me wondering, “Why am I not getting this?”
My husband and I had quickly gotten more involved in local ministries and bible study groups after originally coming. We were hungry, we wanted more. We went to Sunday classes. We read our bibles and prayed together. We stopped listening to secular music, focused our habits more on God.
But no matter what we did, we still had this nagging feeling as though we were missing something. I honestly didn’t feel much at church, certain messages even irked me. I wrestled with “Is this bugging my Spirit? Or my flesh?” My husband felt very strongly no one should be screaming a message at you- I agreed. But what could we do? This was our church, the pastor married us- we didn’t want to be disloyal to that. We kept showing up but at some point it stopped feeling like something we were excited to do and more like a hollow ritual.
After doing many, many studies for the past year, out of sheer confusion and a burning need to understand the heart of Scripture, my eyes were opened to the truth that was all around me:
God is the same yesterday, today and forever.
So many times I had heard these words and they didn’t bring hope or understanding- they only brought me more frustration. Because alongside these words was the teaching that God had changed His mind- and this did not make sense to me. How could a perfect, just, omnipotent and righteous God make a mistake? How could we think the God we serve, all knowing and powerful, decided one thing for us, but then amended that, effectively changing His Word and nullifying parts of scripture?
I was feeling confused- but our God is not a God of confusion- He is a God of shalom (peace).
My husband kept quoting from Proverbs and it really stuck with me;
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.”
— Proverbs 3:5
I decided to seek the answers my church, my pastor and my own understanding were not giving me.
True Repentance
I’m autistic, and I tend to hyper-focus for hours on end. By this point, I was already diving pretty deep into my Bible. I had even downloaded an interlinear app on my phone that I got really into. It shows the Hebrew in the Old Testament and the Greek in the New Testament, plus Strong’s definitions for easy reference. I genuinely enjoy it. (Here’s the link if you’re interested- Greek interlinear bible )
I spent probably 3-5 hours each day for months breaking down New Testament verses through their Greek roots. And there were so many tiny lightbulb moments- “Oh, that’s what that means!” – things I never would have caught from just the English translation.
The first real thing I learned was the correct meaning of “repentance”:
As background, the only version of repentance I knew growing up came from brief encounters with the Catholic church. I was never personally taken to confession, but I did attend a Catholic private school in 7th and 8th grade, where I first learned to associate repentance with condemnation rather than restoration.
One memory in particular stayed with me. I was required to stay after school and write lines-“I will not tell lies”– over and over until it “stuck”. What lodged itself in my mind was not the discipline itself, but that feeling of being shamed and misunderstood. I knew I was not lying, yet the judgement remained. That experience shaped my reaction to the word repent. To me, it came to guilt before truth. Long before I encountered the Scriptures for myself, repentance already carried the weight of condemnation.
The version of repentance I knew followed a similar pattern; enter the confessional booth, confess your sins, and get a variable amount of Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s as penance. It seemed odd to me, distant and hollow. What’s more there was no real talk of Jesus or a feeling of forgiveness either.
It was odd but it went hand in hand to an extent with Judaism, the other side of my uneven yoke upbringing- where of course one does not accept Jesus as Messiah, so this is accompanied by a deep longing for answers, and sad, shameful atonement. Gotta have that Jewish guilt.
(I’m just skimming though this, I myself was not taught much more than this on either part Catholic or Jewish- my intent is not to offend anyone, merely just to state my previous understanding.)
So when I received “The Gospel” but I wasn’t feeling changed, I figured it was just more lack of understanding on my part. In a way, I was correct.
From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
— Matthew 4:17
The word repent in Greek is metanoia:
literally, a change of mind, a shift in thinking, a conscious decision to turn back toward God. Acts 3:19 adds the word epistrephō, meaning to turn around, return, and come back again.
“Repent (metanoia) and be converted (epistrephō), that your sins may be blotted out.
– Acts 3:19
In other words: realize you were wrong and turn back to God. That’s it.
- You will still stumble; the point is surrender, not perfection.
- You don’t beg for forgiveness and penance; you are already forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
- You don’t shame yourself afterward; God isn’t shaming you- that’s man’s gig.
“Blotted out” in Greek is exaleiphō – to be wiped clean, erased completely.
True repentance resets your standing with God. Scripture is clear:
- 1 John 1:9 — He is faithful to forgive and cleanse.
- Psalm 103:12 — As far as the east is from the west.
- Isaiah 43:25 — He will not remember your sins.
- Micah 7:18-19 — He delights in mercy and casts our sins into the depths of the sea.
Can we just pause there for a moment? He delights in mercy. That blew me away. Growing up, I was taught the God of the Old Testament was mostly wrath and judgment. But the Bible actually tells a different story: God is loving, patient, kind, merciful and just.
To quote my husband, “God isn’t sitting up there with a big stick waiting for you to mess up so He can strike you down.”
God wants a relationship. He made you, He knows how you think. And He knows love and closeness don’t come from fear and shame – only love can create love.
Every step we take toward Him is a sign that His Spirit is stirring within us. It doesn’t matter how small the step, how messy the journey, or how many times we stumble. As long as we seek Him with earnest, each moment we turn back to Him, each choice to follow His ways, is proof that He is at work in our hearts.
That’s what repentance means.
So in case no one ever told you- it doesn’t have to be a big show at the altar- it doesn’t even have to be in a church. It can simply be a moment of surrender, a whispered prayer, a choice to choose trusting Him over trusting ourselves. That’s where real change begins, and that’s where true life takes root.
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