Did you know that you cannot be a Christian unless God allows it! Look at John 6:44. No one can come to Christ, the door of heaven, unless God draws him or invites you to come--but do not worry everyone is invited, all are included. See John 3:16 (whoever will believe has chosen to accept the invitation.) This is what the Scripture means when it says "many are called few are chosen." Matthew 22:14. The chosen ones are those who believe.
Did you know that you can't even repent unless God allows it? Did you know that real repentance does not always involve pain or misery or problems? You don't have to be hurt or knocked down; no one has to die or be sad. There does not have to be bloodshed. Did you know that real repentance can involve nothing but good things--positive events--God sent blessings designed to lead you to change.
Understand this important fact: whoever would be a friend of Christ must be willing to change. Why is this so? you may wonder. God by nature, or better-said, part of God's persona is that he is creator, (or changer), that's just one of the ways that he has revealed himself. He makes things. His power is so awesome that his mere thought about something is then active reality, equaling new existence, as we know it.
Jesus is his tool to make all these things. Look at Colossians 1:16. God is pure in all his ways and being. He is not composed of matter, matter is his creation and it can be stained. God is stainless and uncomposed or uncreated, unpolluted and absolute. God is pure holiness and has a marvelous plan for his creation--human beings. Man is indeed God's masterpiece for though he became stained and incomplete, he has been given the ability to change--to grow--to become a creature in the flesh that can have a mind like his Creator! This is astounding! God made man with the salvationous plan to change him in the flesh continually. To make him from dirt, expose him to the dirt, use the dirt to teach him, then give him the constant choice to be cleansed from the dirt, having divine future, not having to return permanently back to the dirt. Man was created to repent.
We were bought into existence to change our existence. Can man change his existence without God, of course not; therefore we cannot repent without God. REPENTANCE IS EXPERIENCING CHANGE. This is a joyful process with eternal ramifications of happiness. All too often we focus on repentance as pain, sorrow, regret, remorse and self-reproach. Not that these things are never present in change, but they do not have to be the tools of change. Christ is the tool of change and he is none of those things. While he was human he experienced some of those emotions, but only to better serve and help change humanity.
Look at Romans 2:4. Do you think lightly of the riches of God's kindness and forbearance and patience--you do not know that THE KINDNESS OF GOD LEADS YOU TO REPENT. Read that verse again--believe it--savor it--pray that it be your impetus for change. Let this be the real reasoning behind your repentance. We repent because Christ offers hope, help, happiness and good things in our future. His is the hand that pulls you out of sorrows--not causing them. God wants to take pain away from you--not use it to make you change. God wants to heal you to give you joy, not hurt you to make you happy. We totally misunderstand God. Our teachers teach ways that are not his ways. Look at Jeremiah 16:19. Our ancestors inherited lies about God--you know that. The best repentance is good, kind, and happy change. If you do not believe that, you had better pray that God shows this to you. Your choice is for a good and kind change, or hurtful suffering change; what will you choose? I cannot speak for anyone but me, but I know that I choose God's kindness to repent me.
What kind of person needs pain to repent? Look at the 5th verse of Romans 2. We actually store up wrath and pain and sorrow for ourselves by being unrepentant and unwilling to be led by God's goodness! This attitude is judged by its own actions (verse 6). Now verse 7. To those who keep doing good and kind things, eternal life is yours. This is the ultimate cycle of truth--God uses kindness and goodness to lead you to repent, you live good and think kind thoughts because you learned it from God, through Christ you are changed and this behavior becomes habitual and will engrave a permanence called righteous character.
Think of a world of people like this, that is, a future picture of Gods kingdom being developed now in you. You are learning to be kind and good because that's how your loving Father is.
Whom does God want to repent? God wants a chosen few; a special small elite's group. What do men teach? What information have we inherited from our fathers? --Our teachers? Groups love to say they are special, that only they are Gods Chosen; they are included--we are left out. What does God's own words say about his will in this vital area? Look in 2 Peter 3:9. God does not will that any should perish---but thatall repent. This is the true will of God--all are invited with kindness and goodness, everyone is included, with Christ there is no special call to salvation, it is general for all that believe. We were made to repent, it is the destiny for all humanity.