Repentance is behaviour change which demands heart change

Miracles occur in the heart that manifest in the change of behaviour.  If anyone would have any doubt that our Lord is a miracle-working God, they would only need to cast an eye over the life of a transformed person.  Anyone who works in the field of recovery has seen many individuals literally transformed from rock bottom to new creation.

The heart is at the centre of such a transformation.  We might think we can change by simply changing our behaviours, but no such sustained behaviour change is possible without it being undergirded by a heart change.

When the heart sees what must change, the human changes as if nothing else matters.  And nothing changes in the longer run if this doesn’t occur.

Especially in the context of couples counselling, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say, “I’ll change, just tell me what you want, and I’ll do it!”  Such a statement is astounding in that it misses the point entirely.  It needs to be the heart that SEES the need for change; a heart that owns its own opportunity to grasp the challenge and make change its own.  The heart must own it.  It can’t come from outside.  The person, themselves, must be convinced they must change.  Only then WILL they change.

This is why recovery and rehabilitation are a waste of time, unless the person who is afflicted themselves sees what THEY must do.  Once we’re sick and tired of being sick and tired there is hope for change. Until there is a reason for change, sustainable change simply cannot occur.  It’s always temporary.  A relapse is only a period of time away.

But someone who has seen what only God can show them — seeing what they can no longer unsee — that person has been touched by the miracle-working God to the extent that they cannot help but change.

The distance and difference between heart and behaviour is paradoxically both nothing and everything.  It is both integral and far-reaching.  The heart produces behaviour, as Jesus said in Matthew 12:34: “The mouth speaks [and the person behaves] what the heart is full of.”  Also, Proverbs 4:23 says, “Out of the heart of a person come the issues of life.”

But heart change can also seem so far away from actualisation.  It cannot be changed under the steam of human ingenuity.  In this way, it IS a miracle!  The person who experiences a renewal of heart attests to comprehensive/instantaneous change that first takes place in the heart and then translates over the months and years in the person’s changed behaviour.

And, here is the key to the miracle: staying in the place of getting the log out of our own eye (Matthew 7:3-5).  This is one thing lacking in those who abuse; they cannot and will not repent.  They cannot see their wrong.  They won’t own up to it.  They avoid it.  They do everything they can to cover it up.  The capacity to repent is the one thing that sets true disciples apart from also-rans... and abusers... it’s the fruit of repentance that reveals whether Jesus is in a believer’s heart or not.

Photo by Linus Nylund on Unsplash