When I think of repentance, what it means, and who in the Scriptures best represents what it means to repent, my mind is brought to the apostle Paul. You see, the apostle Paul had a problem before he met the Lord: He liked to kill Christians. We know of his testimony. We know of his Jewish ancestry, his education, and his religious zeal. We know how his religious zeal drove him to persecute the Church of God, and made a murderer out of him, as he tried to snuff out the Christian faith.
But when the apostle Paul met the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, a radical shift occurred in his life. One dramatic thing you notice about Paul after he received the grace of God: he stopped killing Christians! Why is this? Because after his encounter with the risen Lord, a change happened in his heart and mind. Now, not only did Paul stop killing Christians after his conversion, but he became a man who absolutely loved Christians. Now, instead of seeking to destroy Christians out of his hatred, he looked to build them up out of his love, and make them look more and more like the Jesus he had once seen.
In Paul's conversion, we see the essence of true repentance. Repentance is not merely where one ceases to sin. Rather, repentance is where one not only ceases from sin, but turns away from what they are doing, and goes actively in the opposite direction. Paul could have simply ceased from murdering Christians. But cessation from murdering Christians would not have been an act of repentance. Such would simply have been an exercise in restraint. Rather, his repentance was demonstrated and made complete by his turning away from murdering Christians, to being somebody who actively loved Christians.
This is God's divine u-turn. When you come to the place of repentance, you don't simply cease from doing a sinful action. Stopping is only half the process. Indeed, you are not truly repentant until you turn your back on the actions you once did, and start heading in the opposite direction that you were going.
Such is what means to "bear fruit in keeping with repentance,” (Matthew 3:8) as John the Baptist taught. When you truly recognize the way you've been thinking and acting is not in keeping with the kingdom of God, and your heart is truly grieved over it, simply ceasing from your activities will never do. Indeed, to merely restrain yourself from doing those actions will simply doom yourself to allow habitual sin to enter your life. That is why "he who steals must no longer steal; but rather, must labor, performing with his own hands what is good.” (Ephesians 4:28) Only in doing the opposite that you were once doing will you find victory over the sin in your life. For if you never go in the opposite the direction you were once heading, though you have ceased from a sin, you are still closer to that sin that you once committed than you are to God who is calling you away from it.
That is why the apostle Paul never stumbled back into his old sinful ways of killing Christians. He didn't wake up every day and wonder if he was going to make it through the day without killing another Christian. So far as the record shows, we never see Paul "struggling” with the issue of killing Christians ever again. Why? Because Paul experienced true repentance in his life. He not only ceased from killing Christians, but he did everything to make sure they lived life as fully as possible in Christ.
In light of these things, might I be so bold as to ask how is it that we struggle with the sins we do? How is it that we are given to devilish tempers? How is it then that we are given to various addictions? How is it that we are given to lying? Might I suggest that perhaps the "struggle” we experience with various sins in our life is because we have never truly come to the place of repentance in our lives over those sins? We might do something, and then tell God we'll never do it again, and manage to stop doing it for a while. But before long, that sin creeps back into our life, and the vicious cycle repeats itself. And the cycle will repeat itself, until we truly come to the place of repentance!
We must not only cease from doing the evil thing, but we must learn to do the complete opposite of that evil thing. Liars must not only cease from lying, but they must now tell the truth. Thieves must not only stop stealing, but they must work hard and become givers. Addicts must not only stop their addiction, but they must come to hate the thing they are addicted to. The Paul's of this world must stop murdering Christians, and instead look to edify the Church. This is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to repentance, of whom Paul perhaps served as our greatest example. The greatest of sinners became the greatest of saints.