What's the limit of your patience? If I'd be asked, I'll say it's when a person keeps on repeating his offense. I often lose my cool when a person seems to be too "stupid" and too "stubborn" to do the same mistake over and over again. And inside of me, I justify my impatience with thoughts like "who wouldn't get annoyed by that?"
Perhaps, you've done that too. You clearly tell a person his mistake, he promises not to do it again, and then he did it 5 times more! Isn't that annoying? So, eventually, we get fed up with such people, who seem to be "unrepentant" of their sins since they keep on repeating them.
Sometimes, we apply the same with God's patience towards us. Have you uttered prayers like, "Lord, I'm sorry, I did it again" with a sigh? I did. Many times. Countless times. It's discouraging, isn't it?
And as we think about the N-th time we've done that particular sin, we get the feeling that God is probably already fed up with our prayers. Besides, we're going to do it again. It feels like there's no point in confessing and repenting because next week or next month I might do it again. And since we've done it again, it doesn't seem like we're repenting at all.
Maybe you have heard this a lot: a sign of true repentance is that you won't do it again. Maybe you've heard it from me before. But that statement is actually untrue because the struggle of a Christian with sin is a lifetime:
"For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing." (Romans 7:19, NIV)
Would we say that Paul in his struggle wasn't repenting at all? He keeps on doing the sin he hates. There's repetition there. [1]
It appears that we have gotten this kind of victorious Christian living that we will always overcome sin. Besides, we have verses like this:
"No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God." (1 John 3:10, NIV) [2]
The seeming contradiction has been a struggle for me both theologically and practically. I used to always emphasize that a Christian doesn't continue in his sins but the more I age in the faith, the more I find myself sinful and sinning. So I did re-evaluate what I believe.
Does a Christian keep on sinning or does he not? I found that the answer is both but in different senses.
In one sense, a Christian would not continue in sin to the point that he has no struggle with sin and has no progress in holiness at all and that living in sin has become his apparent lifestyle. When we say "lifestyle", it's the kind of conscious, repetitive sinning that doesn't fluctuate for a long period. I put some qualifying words there. "Conscious" means that we know that it's a sin and "doesn't fluctuate" means that there isn't really a struggle. "For a long period" means that he isn't turning his back on the sin. That's not how Christian lives. That's an unbeliever's life.
At the same time, a Christian will keep on sinning (though he shouldn't) in the sense that he will often discover deeper darkness inside of him and keep on repenting from such darkness.
In this life, sin will always indwell us, though not reign in us. It will keep on battling with us, and sometimes (many times!) it will win. Kris Lundgaard used to say that indwelling sin is like a big, haunted house. One terrifying door leads to another.
(For more information about this indwelling sin, see my post here)
So, back to our repentance issue, it appears that repentance doesn't mean we're not going to do it again. We don't want to do it again and we can avoid it for some time. But at some point in time, we will do some sins that we thought we have already overcome a few days or months, or years ago.
Yesterday, I was listening to a theological podcast [3] about sanctification. One of them named JJ Seid[4] quoted Martin Luther who said,
"Repentance isn't what you do when you fail to grow. Repentance is the way you grow."That's one striking statement. We don't grow in our spiritual lives apart from repentance -- it's how we grow! And the more we grow in Christ, the more we see the malignancy of our sins. And the more we see it, the more we become repentant. Repentance is not just a thing of the past. Just like faith, repentance is continuous. It's how we grow.
I love the way JJ Seid illustrated Christian life and progressive sanctification. He said to picture a man going upstairs with a yoyo.
Christians are the yoyo. There will be highs and lows in our spiritual lives. We will fluctuate from victory to sin and sin to victory. We must always return to the hand (of God) through repentance. But note that the man is going upstairs. Our direction is towards holiness. That means even though we fluctuate day by day. we have the assurance that God will finish the work he started in us (Phil. 1:6). Though not in this life, He will completely vanquish indwelling sin one day.
So if you're just like me, if you have struggled with the thought that you have abused repentance and you feel like God is fed up with you already, there's one thing we need to do -- REPENT! We must repent from unbelief, for thinking that God isn't a forgiving God (1 John 1:8-9), and that repetitive repentance is a sign of being unChristian or unspiritual. Don't get tired of fighting sin. But when you fall, don't get tired of looking at your sins and confessing them to God and repenting over and over again. Remember Luther's words: Repentance is the way we grow.
"Repentance is never complete in this life, any more than is faith. We turn from our sins and then find ourselves repeating them. But we get back up and keep carrying our cross, knowing that it is not our cross that saves us but Christ's." (Michael Horton)
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[1] See also Job 40:3-4; Psalm 51:3; 1 John 1:8
[2] See also 1 John 1:6; Heb 2:14; 12:14; Ezek 36:26-27
[3] Theology Unplugged includes Sam Storms, Michael Patton and Tim Kimberley
[4] JJ Seid is a pastor of Community and Discipleship at Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City
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