True repentance

I posted a comment on Latter Day Saint Woman to this post: "Your Heavy Burden of Sin Has Been Removed!"

The other analogy I heard quite often was that sin is like pounding nails into a board and repentance is like pulling them out. Of course, the problem is that it leaves a hole.  So, the moral is do not sin in the first place so "your board" won't be damaged. 

(I know that this is more a cultural teaching than a doctrinal one.  Click here to see an article about Jeffrey Holland debunking this one.  But it is not uncommon thinking among the saints.)

When I was LDS I taught and was taught in so many ways that sin leaves damages--not just temporal consequences of sin, but that you never fully recover spiritually unless you forsake that sin completely.  

For example, I was incorrectly taught that the Prodigal Son never did regain his inheritance when he returned.  The Father's statement to his righteous son is used as proof.  Marion G. Romney says the Prodigal never regains his inheritance because the "‘father’ himself cannot undo the effect of his son’s refusal to learn wisdom in time to preserve his inheritance..."

But Grace is not a pie and the more someone else gets the less we get.  The text shows the Prodigal was returned to full fellowship and a full inheritance including immediate legal status as the trustee of the estate (he was given the father's coat and ring which sealed wax on legal documents).  

Notice how the Prodigal DID NOTHING except turn back to the Father to win his father's favor (grace not works) . True repentance means a turning around (an attitude, a change of heart) not a process that must be played out. Otherwise, it would never end because the possibility of "re-sinning" would be there until death and resurrection.

Often, church members were taught that perfection was obtained by overcoming (perfectly forsaking) one sin at a time until you got them all like stepping-stones:  "If we can live one gospel principle perfectly today, we can live two principles perfectly tomorrow. Perfection in one thing can act as a stepping-stone to perfection in something else."

In reality,  the Lord does not remember (list, enumerate, count against us) those former sins even when we fall back into them occasionally.  Of course, if the pattern of that sin was never interrupted, I believe the original re-birth probably was not authentic.

John MacArthur, one of my favorite Bible teachers, recently gave an awesome radio sermon on the story of Saul and the destruction (or lack of total destruction) of the Amalekites.  I believe it is a good description of how born-agains such as I can claim to be saved from sin yet still commit sin.  How we can repent and still not be perfect.

"...this is a tremendous insight into God's attitude toward sinners and His holiness and wrath against sin. But I want to use it just as an analogy, if I might, this morning. It is an excellent illustration analogically of the sin that remains in the believer's life. When you were saved and I was saved there was at that moment a crushing defeat of sin...a crushing defeat. From one end to the other, east to west, north to south our sin was crushed. But we still have remaining sins.

"There are some Amalekites running around loose in every one's life. We all have our Agags. And the problem in our Christian lives is not that sin has not been defeated with a crushing defeat, it has but there is still remaining sin. There are some loose iniquitous Amalekites in all of us. And though there was a great and glorious and triumphant defeat at the time of our salvation, there is the necessity that the remaining sins be hacked to pieces or they will revive, they will plunder our hearts and sap our spiritual strength. We cannot be merciful with the Agags of our life. We cannot be merciful with the remaining sins in our life or they will turn and create an insurrection and a rebellion to attempt to destroy us."

But the victory was gained, nonetheless, when Jesus accomplished the work and Satan was crushed.  Praise God!!