The Bible often mentions returning to God in repentance when we are under sin (Acts 20:21). God himself commands people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30). Repentance means turning back from our wrong and evil ways (Jas 5:20; Acts 3:26). We need an attitude of repentance when we come to believe. We could say that faith in God leads to repentance. It will be difficult for you to repent if you don’t have a deep trust, belief, or obedience toward God. To repent effectively, we must be inspired by the truth of grace and confess our sins before God (Lk 19:8–9). True repentance means we turn from our life of sin, which means our thoughts and behavior must change or turn (Lk 3:8). Without true repentance, mere lip-service or confessing the Lord with our mouths alone does nobody any good. If our belief in God is going to be superficial, then we might as well not believe. A believer who does not approach God’s grace with a correct faith has no share in the truth, just like apostle Peter told Simon the sorcerer he had no part with the grace of the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:9–24).
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