What is True and Genuine Repentance?

The only way that God has laid down for man to be Saved is by Repentance and Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. God will never never accept anybody who tries to come to Him in any other way. That is, we can come to God and be saved from sins only by "True Repentance and Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ". There is no other way that we can come to God.

True repentance is turning to God from idols to serve the true and living God. We will be tempted to think that the idols means the wood and stone(statues) found in the heathen temples. They are also idols. But the very important idols that we have to turn from are the idols of pleasure, comfort, money, one's own reputation, wanting one's own way & will(self will) etc., "

To repent means to stop worshipping these idols, and to turn away from them to God. That is to stop desiring to have the pleasure, comfort, money, one's own reputation, wanting one's own way(self will) etc., "

Therefore, repentance means that we need to change our mind about sin and the world. We have to feel sorrowful about the way we've lived. We should not yeild to the self will, instead yileding our self to the will of God and willing to do whatever God wants us to do from now on, whatever the cost and however humiliating it may be.

To experience the true repentance, we need to lay our entire soul open before God. We can be certain that the Lord will not fail to enlighten us concerning our sin. Our Lord will shine as a light in us by the careful and regular reading and meditation of the word of God, and through his shining , He will allow us to see the nature of all our faults. When this brilliant light( which is Christ Himself) shines on us and in us, we(souls) are under true examination. An examination is being given to us by God when this happens. Since it is our Lord who is doing this, and no one else, we should simply remain peaceful and calm before Him as He carries out this exposing of our sins.

We need to depend upon our Lord, not on ourself to expose sin and to show us the extent of our sin. Here we need to understand one fact. That is, it is not our diligence, it is not our examination of ourslef that will enlighten us concerning our sin. Instead, it is God who does all the revealing.

During this course of time, for instance, as soon as we commit a sin, we are immediately rebuked by an inward sense. It will be a kind of deep, inward burning..... a tender confusion. In this manner all things are exposed under the piercing glance of our Lord. He will not allow any sin to be hidden or concealed.

As for us, when the Lord has firmly established this relationship, we will have sense that He has so completely found us out that each time His light focuses on the sin in our life, we have will have only one course. All we can do is turn very simply to Him and there bear all the pain and correction which He inflicts(causes to be suffered).

As we continue in this experience with our Lord, after a period of time of experiencing Him in this way, the Lord will become more and more the constant examiner of our soul. It will not be we examining ourself, and it will not be seasonal, but it will be the Lord who will examine us constantly.

If we remain faithful in giving ourself up to the Lord in this way, we will come to realize that divine light of our Lord can really reveal our heart far more effectively than all our efforts ever could.

Now as we continue in this manner, there is awaiting a "higher understanding and a higher experience of confession of sin and repentance". There is a deeper experience of confession of sin than the feeling of regret and sorrowfullness. In fact, we will find these feelings of regret and sorrowfullness are replaced by something else. That is, they are replaced by a love and a tranquillity(calm and undisturbed). That love and that tranquillity sweetly saturates our soul and having saturated it thoroughly, takes full possession of it.

It is this love and tranquility(that deep sense of love within us, that deep calmness and undisturbedness). This is a much purer and much higher expression of repentance. This is higher than anything we could produce by our own effort. This love and tranquillity takes all other feelings of repentance, and sums them up into one, and expresses the totality of repentance much more perfectly than if each part of repentance were individually expressed to the Lord.

When the Lord has established this relationship in our life, that would be the pure repentance of His way.

As we continue in this way, we would bear Fruit worthy of the Repentance that we had. The Fruit is nothing but the Fruit of the Holy Spirit. The Fruit of the Holy Spirit is Love , Joy , Peace, Long Suffering, Faith, Kindness, Goodness, Meekness, Temperance(Self-control). If we keep continue in bearing these fruit, then we could assume that the Repentane that we had is the true and Genuine Repentance. If we could not bear these Fruits, then simply we have to acknowledge that the Repentance that we had is a  false and counterfeit Repentance.