Repentance - christiansquoting.org.uk

If you're headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns

Semper peccator, semper penitens

To my eternal shame, I even got my wife and daughter to back me up with witness statements supporting my lie. But then my opponents ambushed me in the middle of the trial with clear documentary evidence that I had told a lie on oath. My credibility as a witness was shattered. I had to withdraw from the libel case. And within 24 hours my whole life was shattered too. The former Cabinet Minister had impaled himself on his own sword of truth, with explosive and apocalyptic consequences. Some people have expressed surprise that I am still in one piece after being so torn to shreds in the onslaught of media vilification and castigation I received at the height of my dramas. A great deal of the criticism of me was vitriolic; some of it was vicious; and I deserved most of it. When these thunderbolts were raining in on me from all directions, I turned to my Christian faith,imperfect though it was, and began to ponder more deeply than ever before on the great themes in the gospels of love, penitence, redemption and resurrection. Although I am sceptical of fox-hole conversion, nevertheless the time when I was at the nadir of my misfortunes was the time when I turned more humbly and penitently than ever towards Our Lord Jesus Christ. -Jonathan Aitken in The Tablet. 12 June 1999

Then Isaiah heard the wonderful words: 'This has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for.' And the Scripture goes on: 'Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And I said: Here am I! Send me.' Note the total unconditionality of that response, 'Send me'. It does not mean, 'Send me, I was going that way anyhow', or 'Send me, I was planning to do that', or 'Send me, I rather like the sound of that idea'. It may mean something much more disagreeable. In my case it means, 'Send me to prison'.- Jonathan Aitken in The Tablet. 12 June 1999

There is one case of death-bed repentance recorded, that of the penitent thief, that none should despair; and only one, that none should presume. -Augustine (354-430)

I have often loved darkness,
observed lying vanities,
forsaken thy mercies,
trampled underfoot they beloved Son,
mocked thy providence,
flattered thee with my lips,
broken thy covenant,
It is of thy compassion that I am not consumed.
Lead me to repentance, and save me from despair;
Let me come to thee renouncing, condemning, loathing myself,
but hoping in the grace that flows even to the chief of sinners.
At the cross may I contemplate the evil of sin, and abhor it,
look on him whom I pierced,
as one slain for me, and by me.
- From The Valley of Vision. A Bennett

If you have sinned, do not lie down without repentance; for the want of repentance after one has sinned makes the heart yet harder and harder.- John Bunyan

No man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men: neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief.- Calvin Commentary on Acts 2:21

An error gracefully acknowledged is a victory won.- Caroline Gascoigne

A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up. - Goethe, _Maxims and Reflections_, early 19thC

A dead end street is a good place to turn around.- Naomi Judd (1946-____)

Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are, the more you need it and the less you can do it.- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

A governor of a certain state was visiting the state prison, and stopped to talk with a number of prisoners. They told him their story, and in every instance it was one of wrong suffered by an innocent person. There was one man, however, who admitted his crime and the justice of his sentence. "I must pardon you," said the governor; "I can't have you in here corrupting all these good men." --Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) _Lincoln's Wit_ [1958],

If men expect God to return to them in prosperity, they must return to Him in pentience. The flower avereted from the sun must turn toward it, to catch its genial smile.- Thomas V Moore, A Commentary ofn Zechariah, 1856 ( on Zec 1:3.)

There is no carbon paper between the pages of life. Each day is new and God's mercies are freely available. How thankful I am that I don't have to make up for lost time with God. We live in a world where our days are packed with appointments and responsibilities. People and institutions often require the "make-up work," but relationship with God begins fresh each day - Donna Newton

I quit telling my husband"I'm sorry", when he said, "So's the rest of your family!"-Pat Nordman

The New Testament word for repentance means changing one's mind so that one's views, values, goals, and ways are changed and one's whole life is lived differently. The change is radical, both inwardly and outwardly; mind and judgment, will and affections, behavior and lifestyle, motives and purposes, are all involved. Repenting means starting a new life.-J. I. Packer, Concise Theology, PG. 162.

Every time we say, 'I believe in the Holy Spirit,' we mean that we believe that there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it.-
J. B. Phillips, Plain Christianity 1954

A Christian is a person who has the possibility of innumerable new starts.- Francis Schaeffer

A true repentance shuns the evil itself, more than the external suffering or the shame.- Shakespeare

Repentance is in every view so desirable, so necessary, so suited to honor God, that I seek that above all. The tender heart, the broken and contrite spirit, are to me far above all the joys that I could ever hope for in this vale of tears. I long to be in my proper place, my hand on my mouth, and my mouth in the dust... I feel this to be safe ground. Here I cannot err... I am sure that whatever God may despise... He will not despise the broken and contrite heart. - Charles Simeon (1759-1836)

A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than yesterday.- Jonathan Swift

Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. - A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God [1948]

Repentance is a grace of God's Spirit whereby a sinner is inwardly humbled and visibly reformed. -- THOMAS WATSON

God keeps open house for hungry sinners - THOMAS WATSON