Zachary Groff 📖

You can weep over your sin and still love it. You can fear its consequences while secretly longing to commit it again. You can confess it with your lips while keeping it enthroned in your heart. In his 1668 book The Doctrine of Repentance, the Puritan Thomas Watson identifies SIX essential ingredients of true repentance: 1. SIGHT OF SIN: You must see your own wickedness, not merely the sins of others. You must recognize what you are before a holy God. 2. SORROW FOR SIN: You must grieve not merely because your sin has brought you suffering, but because you have offended the God who made you. 3. CONFESSION OF SIN: You must stop excusing, minimizing, and concealing your transgressions. You must accuse yourself and acknowledge your guilt before God. 4. SHAME FOR SIN: You must learn to blush at what you once boasted of. What once delighted your corrupt heart must now humble you. 5. HATRED OF SIN: You must hate what you once loved. Not merely because sin threatens your happiness, reputation, or eternal safety, but because it is hateful to God. 6. TURNING FROM SIN: You must forsake your wicked ways and turn to God with your whole heart. You cannot claim to have abandoned sin while secretly reserving a place for its return. You have not truly repented merely because you regret what sin has cost you. The question is whether you now hate the sin you once cherished, and whether your heart and life are being turned toward God. Repentance is not merely sorrow over sin. It is a Spirit-wrought change of heart that produces a change of life.