Restitution and Repairing the Ruins

When you are working on confessing your sin remember that part of confessing sin means to do whatever you can to restore the relationship. We have already discussed the fact that this means that you need to begin with admitting your sin in the whole shebang. Now you need to turn your attention to repairing the ruins. If, in your anger, you threw something at the wall and broke it, you will need to repair whatever was broken. If your sin was that you stole money from someone, you will need to make restitution (Ex. 22:15; Lev. 5:16; 6:2ff; Num. 5:5ff, etc.). If the sin was breaking your wife’s heart, you’ll need to do whatever you can to repair her heart. Admitting the sin is the first step, but now you’ll need to go way above and beyond anything you have done before to make things right.

This change from sinning to doing what is right is called repentance. Repentance means literally to “change your mind.” In the context of the Bible, it means to change your mind from what you thought before about yourself, your life, your deserts, your rights, your desires, and your place in creation and replace them with thoughts about what God thinks about you in all those areas. Your immediate behavior is an indicator of what you think of yourself. If you are sinning, you have replaced Christ as the center of your life with yourself. If you are standing up for your rights, you are not standing up for Christ’s rights. If you have been offended and you are reacting to that affront, you have abandoned Jesus as Lord and have sought to take his place. Repentance means confessing your sin, changing your mind about who you are, and replacing those wrong thoughts with a renewed allegiance to follow Christ wherever he leads.