While people can make positive changes in their lives, true repentance—the kind that counts toward salvation—only occurs after God has invited a person into a relationship with Him. Human beings are full of sin, and our natures compel us away from the path that God has revealed to lead to the Kingdom of God. Once God initiates the relationship, and we believe and vow to seek Him and His Kingdom, then real change for the better can commence and continue throughout the rest of our lives.

Knowing that we need to repent, however, still does not tell us what true repentance is. Repent and repentance are words that we have a vague understanding of, but like many theological terms, they stand for a great deal more than their simple definitions tell. It will take a little digging to come to a full understanding of the concept.

The English word repentance derives from a Latin word, penitere, meaning "to make sorry." It is closely related to penitence, which means "contrition leading to change of behavior," and is a distant relation of the word pain. Its native English equivalent is rue, "regret, sorrow, remorse." Other than its association with penitence, repentance can strike an English speaker as a mere feeling of sorrow, regret, or contrition. However, we realize that biblical repentance goes beyond mere feeling.

Even so, this etymology provides a clue about an element of true repentance: It involves pain, particularly emotional pain. To repent is wrenching to the psyche. It really hurts because it is difficult to do. Oftentimes, what we must do is a bitter pill to swallow because it means changing ingrained attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that have set hard like concrete in our lives. From this, we can conclude that any repentance that comes easily is probably not true repentance. If we have not felt some measure of pain in repenting, we have likely not seen the depths of our sinful ways.