"I say unto you, Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3,4

When John the Baptist......... came as Christ's forerunner he preached the absolute need for repentance. When Christ started out on His public ministry He called for repentance. When the apostles of the early church arrested the attention of their society they demanded repentance. Yet the Christian leaders of our generation are almost silent on the subject. They are reluctant to carry out Christ's clear command that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all the nations of the earth. Read Luke 24:45-48.

The question needs to be asked clearly and very emphatically: "What is repentance from God's viewpoint? What does it demand of man?"

It is absolutely essential for lay people to understand this. If there is to be harmony, unity, and goodwill between the Living Christ and us common men and women, it must be based not only on the majestic accomplished work of Christ but also on our personal willingness to repent of our pride, our perverseness, and our pollution.

In essence repentance is a disclosure to us of our undone condition before the absolute love, purity, justice, and incandescent righteousness of the Risen Christ. It is borne in upon our stained souls so smeared with selfishness, our spirits so sullied with pride, our daily behavior so corrupted with evil that we are at odds with God our Father. We actually become very acutely aware that we have set ourselves up in antagonism to Him. We are at enmity with God. We are rebels living in open defiance of His best intentions for us. We have set ourselves up in pride as supreme in our own affairs. So we refuse to receive Him as Monarch in our lives. We close Him out of our considerations. We live as though He were dead.

The actual truth is just the opposite: He declares us to be dead in our sins and iniquities, needing desperately to cast ourselves upon His mercy in profound repentance and beseeching Him to impart His divine and eternal life to us.

Repentance is not a once-for-all experience that takes place only at the time of initial conversion. It is in fact a daily sacrifice in which we see ourselves as we really are in the white, intense light of Christ's character and His Word, so that we need to turn to Him for cleansing and for forgiveness. It is the continual repudiation of evil in our lives. It is the humble admission of having missed the mark in the high calling to which Christ calls us. It is the bold willingness to face our sins and to come to hate them with utter disdain and stern intensity because they are such a grief to Christ and such a corruption of our own characters.

W. Phillip Keller, "The High Cost of Holiness" pp.126-128