"Christ captured the essence of repentance in the Sermon on the Mount. He said: "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." (Matt. 5: 6.) Repentance begins by wantng to be more in harmony with God. It involves hungering and thirstng for something better. Done correctly, there is an eager willingness about repentance. Too often we associate it with guilt and being shamed into changing. The Gospel is more positive than that. It presumes the repentant soul is intrigued by what Christ offers. Those who most fit the model are they who drop their nets, abandon their fishing ships, and follow Christ as He strolls along the shoreline asking for followers. There is an ease and alacrity to repentance which we should not miss. It is not dreadful. It is not guilt. In fact, it is unlikely guilt alone could ever get anyone to repent in the way the Gospel requires. Inexperienced teachers often resort to guilt and shame as a substitute for preaching the Gospel in a way that invites interest. Their inexperience should not leave you feeling guilty or shamed. See the Gospel for what it was meant to be: an exciting, even thrilling invitation to reconnect with the Living God. Reconnecting in this way requires repentance. Or, in other words, it requires you to change and leave some things
behind.

"The Adversary is probably delighted with our traditional, narrow view of repentance. We associate it almost exclusively with stopping something. ' need to repent' most often is an expression for 'I need to stop doing that.' In that sense repentance is exclusively 'deduction' or 'subtraction.' In the real sense of the word, however, repentance is 'addidve' and 'positive.' It is the process of growing and receiving new information, new oudooks, and new positive behavior into your life. It is discovery filled with wonderment and joy. If you view repentance only as 'stopping' then you need to repent and begin 'startng.'" (Denver Snuffer, Eighteen Verses, p. 197-198)

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