Change is the big C in the formula of life, a chaotic constant in the status quo we both desire and despise. We find comfort in stability and struggle with depression if all remains the same. We crave alteration, so long as it doesn’t pull us out of our comfort zone.

“Change” is a promissory word. It gleams with the polish of political speeches offering better days ahead if we vote for those seeking power, be they replacements or incumbents. We can smell it in the air and feel it in our bones when the long nights of winter lose their grip to the warmer dawns of spring. We believe in its potential every time we reach for the “new and improved” products shoved forward on the grocery shelves.

“Change” in our cultural parlance carries the unspoken freight of “for the better.” I have personally never intentionally worked for a worse tomorrow than my present today. Neither have I met anyone who has made a New Year’s resolution to intentionally degrade an aspect of their life. We generally aspire to improve, grow, and gain.

As powerful as the idea of change can be, transformation trumps it. In personal development, positive change is a better-me scenario. Transformation is another-me altogether. Change is a worm in a better garden patch. Transformation is metamorphosis, the worm with brilliant wings helping the garden flourish and multiply.

No biblical conversation about transformation would seem complete without a mention of the gold standard verse of Romans 12:2.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2 ESV)

For most of my Christian life, this verse has held a privileged position as the main ingredient for true faithfulness and discipleship. It represented a commitment to think differently, to push against the tide of the world toward the thoughts of the Word of God. Unfortunately, the way I learned this verse and subsequently taught it majored on introspection and minored on behavior. It turned a phrase in a letter into a key to the kingdom instead of seeing it as a single thread in a larger tapestry.

And that wasn’t the worst of it.

The worst of it was that in my focus on a single verse—and a great verse at that—caused me to give short shrift to the major first step in any disciple’s life.

¹In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, ²“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 3:1-2 ESV, see also Matt. 4:17)

Even though I grew up in the lap of the Baptist church to which the concept of repentance was far from foreign, I somehow assumed that the big R was a word firmly aimed at the unsaved and unbelieving. It was the part of the message crafted to call them to the altar and pray the sinner’s prayer for salvation.

After all, I was born into a Christian family. I have no memory of time when I didn’t believe in Jesus as my Savior. Praying “Your kingdom come, your will be done” was like a birthright, the prayer of princes looking to do the Father’s will. In my leap to the Sermon on the Mount, the preaching of the wilderness became a faint cry, a wind-whisper from the wandering past.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

“Repent” lacks the hopeful promise of “change” and the marketing appeal of “transformation.” Actual change may make us uncomfortable, but the charge to repent always does. My two most common reactions are denial and defense. “Repent? Who, me?” “Repent? From what?” With these self-preserving reflexes, I completely lost sight of the why.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Rebellion seems possible when the king is far away. Our own national history teaches us this. Traitors closer to London never faired as well as Washington. But a merciful king intending to exert his sovereign right on a people who have forgotten his rule would send his emissary to prepare them for his arrival and grant them the grace to receive their king as loyal and lawful subjects.

For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’” (Matthew 3:3 ESV)

John’s was the prophetic cry promised by Yahweh to his covenant people.

Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. (Malachi 3:1)

Mention repentance, particularly in a group of Bible nerds, and discussions of definitions are bound to erupt. We want to talk Greek and expound on “the actual meaning of the word” and intellectualize what is a behavioral call we all get in our gut at the mention of the word.

It is because we actually know what it means that it makes us uncomfortable. Though it is the invitation of the King, but we often opt to hear it as the accusation of the serpent. The call to the light exposes the darkness of our sin, tempting us to embrace remorse as a cheap substitute for repentance. We are at ease with terms like “brokenness” and “fallen,” not so honest with our actual rebellion in the face of the King’s love.

Make his paths straight!

In making repentance primarily about me instead of for him has managed to keep some winding streets laced around my heart. The kingdom of heaven is at hand and its full expression in the new heaven and upon the new earth where God Almighty and the Lamb will sit enthroned to reign in perpetual manifest glory is an inevitable reality. We hold onto this promise as a soul anchor, praying with all saints across time, “Come soon, Lord Jesus!”

But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. (Malachi 3:2 ESV)

Repentance is a call to all, but especially to those within the covenant community, those who know the right and do the wrong anyway. And by those, I mean me.

Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. (Malachi 3:5 ESV)

The kingdom of heaven is at hand. I cannot afford to hear Malachi’s words as spoken to someone else. Every lustful glance marks me an adulterer, every broken promise makes me a liar, every injustice to the laborer brands me as an oppressor, every self-righteous and callous word spoken against the immigrant marks me as one who does not fear God. I need to repent, moment by moment and day by day. I need to keep my feet turned to walk His way.

⁶For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. ⁷From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts… (Malachi 3:6-7b ESV)

Repentance is a call to commune with the King, to stop running away and start running toward without ever stopping. At the risk of exposing myself as a Bible nerd, I offer the following quote from the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament regarding metanoia, the Greek word behind the English imperative, “Repent!”

The NT…reserves [the term] metanoia for the divinely effected change of heart which leads to salvation.

The call to repentance is not just an altar call, it is a life call from the King who wants you with him, always. Before self-improvement, before transformation, before resolutions comes repentance never to be repented of.