Your church did not write the Bible. Your church has created mythical traditions found nowhere in scripture and made the traditions of greater importance than God and his word. Jesus condemns your traditions like he condemns the Judaisers. Let that sink in. Throw out the worthless, mythical traditions.
The Greek word metanoia means a change of mind,, to think the opposite way you were thinking.
I disagree with the statement above.
This is the perfect example of repentance, which lead to a great awakening in Macedonia and Greece.
Truth! No man seeks God in our sinful and dead state, we must be regenerated (reborn) of the Holy Spirit, Faith comes from God as a gift and we (the elect) naturally accept it... We then transform, put on the new man and become Gods workmanship by grace, Faith is the whole because we cannot tear away from it, it sticks, it stays with us 24/7 and cannot escape us. Belief is another way of saying "now you know" you are aware that you believe but it's not some decision we made, again it comes from God always.
God first chooses to make a person alive with Christ. Now that they are made right with God, God calls the newly alive person to repentance.
God calls those whom He has made alive in Christ to repentance.
True, a non believer wouldn't even want to repent, they wouldn't even care what that word even means, it's complete garbage and jarring to their ears.
Same here brother, I was a complete atheist anti-Christ up until around the age 30 or so, I was at my lowest point and I began praying to God for help. Sometimes looking back I wonder what made me 'know' I was speaking to the God I had been so sure didn't exist, I wonder how many atheist will find themselves bowing their knees in prayer to the God they believed was make believe.
