Is Repentance a Checklist?
To my friend who worries whether you have repented enough to be forgiven: So, you know you have sinned, and you feel bad. You want to repent. (see 1 ) You have confessed to the Lord, but maybe you can't make restitution, or maybe you want to forsake your sins and keep the commandments, but you keep messing up. Perhaps you worry that people who sin after repenting must not have repented or cannot be forgiven. (see 2 ) You may wonder, will the Lord forgive me only after I finally stop sinning? How long must I be clean or sober? One year? Ten? Until death? What if I fell off the wagon after a record length? Would all my former sins return, sending me back to the beginning? Can I ever be forgiven? Or have I sinned too severely, too intensely, or too frequently? What do the scriptures say? The scribes and Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman taken in the very act of adultery. The law of Moses commanded that adulterers should be stoned, but Jesus (God himself) refused to condemn he