True repentance is not an event. It is a never-ending privilege. It is fundamental to progression and having peace of mind, comfort, and joy.
Repentance
LDS Quotes on Repentance
The miracle of the Atonement is not just that we can go home but that—miraculously—we can feel at home there. If Heavenly Father and His Son did not require faith and repentance, then there would be no desire to change.
Think of your friends and family members who have chosen to live without faith and without repentance. They don’t want to change. They are not trying to abandon sin and become comfortable with God. Rather, they are trying to abandon God and become comfortable with sin.
If the Father and the Son did not require covenants and bestow the gift of the Holy Ghost, then there would be no way to change. We would be left forever with only willpower, with no access to His power. If Heavenly Father and His Son did not require endurance to the end, then there would be no internalization of those changes over time. They would forever be surface and cosmetic rather than sinking inside us and becoming part of us—part of who we are. Put simply, if Jesus didn’t require practice, then we would never become Saints.
“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”
| Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
“Rationalizing is the bringing of ideals down to the level of one’s conduct. Repentance is the bringing of one’s conduct up to the level of his ideals.”
| The Miracle of Forgiveness
“There should be no license for sin, but mercy should go hand in hand with reproof.”
| Documentary History of the Church, vol. 5, p. 24.
“What symbol more expressive of a cleansing from sin could be given than that of baptism in water?”
| Articles of Faith, 109
True repentance is not an event. It is a never-ending privilege. It is fundamental to progression and having peace of mind, comfort, and joy.
“I would not have anyone believe that there is no hope if there are some who have made such a grievous mistake, because repentance and forgiveness are also a part of the gospel. Thank God for that! But it must be real repentance. Such repentance is a deep, heartfelt sorrow for sin that produces a reformation of life. It is not just a confession of guilt. Sometimes we regard all too lightly the principle of repentance, thinking that it only means confession, that it only means feeling sorry for ourselves. But it is more than that. It is a deep, burning, and heartfelt sorrow for sin that will drive us to our knees in humility and tears—a deep, heartfelt sorrow for sin that produces a reformation of life. That is the right test: a reformation of life. Only then may the God of heaven in his mercy and his goodness see fit to forgive us. He—not the priesthood on the earth—is the judge. Priesthood holders can only carry out certain requirements. They can require certain things set forth in the revelations, but forgiveness comes from above.”
| God, Family, Country: Our Three Great Loyalties, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1974, p. 196
“There are many people who seem to rely solely on the Lord’s mercy rather than on accomplishing their own repentance. … The Lord may temper justice with mercy, but he will never supplant it. Mercy can never replace justice. God is merciful, but he is also just.”
| The Miracle of Forgiveness, Bookcraft, 1969, p. 358.
When spiritually aligned, a poise can come, even when we do not know “the meaning of all things.” (1 Ne. 11:17) Such contented assurance produces not arrogance but quiet acceptance, which is its own form of being “anxiously engaged” but without all the bells and whistles (D&C 58:27; see also D&C 58:28).
However, this spiritual contentment rests on our accepting the Atonement of Jesus, because we “have come to a knowledge of the goodness of God, and his matchless power, and his wisdom, and his patience, and his long-suffering towards the children of men; and also, the atonement which has been prepared from the foundation of the world” (Mosiah 4:6).
Again, brothers and sisters, seeing Alma move from wanting to be a “trump” to being a humble “instrument” and from wanting to “shake the earth” to “perhaps [bringing] some soul to repentance” is a stunning transition! (See Alma 29:1.) Furthermore, isn’t it wonderful that we are permitted to grow, whether that growth is expressed in the space of nine verses or in a lifetime?
| “Content with the Things Allotted unto Us,” Ensign, May 2000, p. 72