Transformed: Repentance Is Power

Are you struggling with an issue in life that you just can’t seem to overcome? Perhaps an addiction to something? Or a bad habit like laziness? Unloving behavior? Anger control issues? There is a power residing within that allows us to overcome all the problems of the world.

1 John 5:4-5 “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

What John means by “the world” is the demonic aspects of life, the sin nature we live in.

John says that through a correct faith in Jesus Christ, that is, that He is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, the God-man, we overcome these things.

The word “overcome” in the Greek is nika which means “victory”. But it is more than just any victory, it means to conquer with overwhelming force, to win without effort. It brings to mind the swarm tactics of Alexander the Great, he used his army to encircle the enemy and destroy them from all sides. Likewise the Trinity acting within us via faith in Jesus destroys sin with an overwhelming force.

We experience this victory because Jesus has done it for us, He destroyed the works of the devil on the cross, He achieved victory over the world and everything in it.

How do we share in this victory? By faith. When we are born again we come to faith in Christ and with this faith comes repentance of our sins and forgiveness for them. With forgiveness comes the expelling of the sin from the persons soul. It is through repentance that we access that power.

For instance, within my own faith journey I have seen the power of repentance transform my life. For years I was a lazy couch potato, but when I repented of this sin, Jesus not only forgave me of that sin, but He transformed me, He renewed me and altered how I behaved afterward. I went from sitting around getting fat to working out at the gym 2 1/2 hours ever other day.

Another time He transformed me was when I used to be angry all time. For years I was full of rage at the world, but I repented and God pulled the hate and anger out of me, to such a degree that things that used to enrage me, I don’t even notice anymore.

All of these transformations of the mind and personality was not a result of my own effort, it is not possible to be transformed overnight from being full of hate and rage to being at peace, it was all the work of Jesus Christ working in me through the Holy Spirit. He used His divine power to take my sin away and transform my mind. This transformation happened because I made use of my faith and repented.

That is the key to all spiritual transformation, repentance. It is through repentance that we let go of the sin and give it over to Jesus, who then transforms us through His forgiveness and conforms us to His being.

How have you been transformed by Jesus?