Wednesday, 30 October 2024

REPENTANCE

 

          REPENTANCE

A repentant person is one who is sorrowful, apologetic, regretful, remorseful, guilt-ridden or ashamed for any wrong he has done.

To repent is to feel or express sincere regret or remorse about one’s wrongdoing or sin. It may also mean to feel sorrow for your  sin and make up your mind to do what is right.

In repentance there is a feeling of dissatisfaction with what one has done unlawfully or immorally.

  To remain innocent all through one’s life is unimaginable.  The world is a slippery place both legally and morally.   There is hardly a grown-up person who has not committed some sort of guilt and consequently has not been pricked by his conscience to realize his guilt and become repentant. 

Hardened sinners who refuse to repent throughout their life are devilish.

According to the Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle (1795-18881 “Of all acts of man repentance is the most divine and the greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.

The American playwright Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) said that true repentance consists in the heart being broken for sin and broken from sin. Some often repent, yet never reform; they resemble a man travelling in a dangerous path, who frequently starts and stops, but never turns back.

The English philosopher and physician John Locke (1632-1704) believes that repentance is a hearty sorrow for our past misdeeds, and a sincere resolution and endeavour, to the utmost of our power, to conform all our actions to the law of God. It does not consist in one single act of sorrow, but in doing works meet for repentance; in a sincere obedience to the law of God  for the remainder of our lives.

Personally speaking, no sinner can revive his innocence and be pardoned by God without whole-hearted repentance.

Finally, this quote: Repentance is about humbly acknowledging sins, turning away from them, and surrendering to God’s mercy and grace.

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G.R.Kanwal

30 October 2024

 

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