Inspirational Quotes on Repentance

“Confession and repentance might be described as the negative side of submission; this involves getting rid of everything which hinders God’s control over our lives. Yielding to God might be described as the positive side . . . placing ourselves totally into the hands of God.”

“What does repentance mean? It means to change—to change your mind, change the way that you’re living—and to determine that with God’s help you will live for Christ.”

“You and I, God’s ambassadors, are called to sound the warning, to call sinners to repentance, to point the way to peace with God and the hope that is in Christ.”

“I have been preaching repentance for seventy years; there are thousands of ministers of the Gospel all over this planet preaching repentance this very hour . . . and most of the time the world has laughed in the face of the King of kings.”

“It is the Holy Spirit who brings about conviction [of sin] . . .repentance cannot take place unless first there is a movement of the Holy Spirit in the heart and mind.”

“Repentance is mentioned seventy times in the New Testament . . . the Bible says God commands repentance . . . it is a command . . . God says, “Repent! Or perish!”

“Understanding the consequence of sin and arrogance should motivate every Christian to pray for repentance and revival.”

“It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, "Wait on time.”

“If you are renewed by grace, and were to meet your old self, I am sure you would be very anxious to get out of his company.”

“But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God's love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin to be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his own illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God.”

“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart.”

“The church is not a theological classroom. It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness and sanctification center, where flawed people place their faith in Christ, gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he designed.”

“God does not demand that every man attain to what is theoretically highest and best. It is better to be a good street sweeper than a bad writer, better to be a good bartender than a bad doctor, and the repentant thief who died with Jesus on Calvary was far more perfect than the holy ones who had Him nailed to the cross. And yet, abstractly speaking, what is more holy than the priesthood and less holy than the state of a criminal? The dying thief had, perhaps, disobeyed the will of God in many things: but in the most important event of his life he listened and obeyed. The Pharisees had kept the law to the letter and had spent their lives in the pursuit of a most scrupulous perfection. But they were so intent upon perfection as an abstraction that when God manifested His will and His perfection in a concrete and definite way they had no choice but to reject it.”

“We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker's, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ: if we have repented these early sins we should remember the price of our forgiveness and be humble.”

“It is not the absence of sin but the grieving over it which distinguishes the child of God from empty professors”

“Repentance was never yet produced in any man's heart apart from the grace of God. As soon may you expect the leopard to regret the blood with which its fangs are moistened,—as soon might you expect the lion of the wood to abjure his cruel tyranny over the feeble beasts of the plain, as expect the sinner to make any confession, or offer any repentance that shall be accepted of God, unless grace shall first renew the heart.”

“There is no repentance where a man can talk lightly of sin, much less where he can speak tenderly and lovingly of it.”

“The more faithful preachers are to the Word of God in their preaching, the more liable they are to the charge of hypocrisy. Why? Because the more faithful people are to the Word of God the higher the message is that they will preach. The higher the message, the further they will be from obeying themselves.”

“...in the course of our lives, the evil which in itself we seek most to shun, and which, when we are fallen into, is the most dreadful to us, is oftentimes the very means or door of our deliverance, by which alone we can be raised again from the affliction we are fallen into...”

“Christ's atonement fully satisfied the demands of God's righteousness, so forgiveness and mercy are guaranteed to those who receive Christ in humble, repentant faith.”