“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;
Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes.
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do good;
Seek justice,
Rebuke the oppressor;
Defend the fatherless,
Plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1:16-17).
Even in the days of old, when Isaiah wrote these profound words, the idea of true
repentance was put before the people. The prophet says repentance is ceasing to
evil and learning to do good—that is, it is a change of mind resulting in a change of
behavior.
Some mistakenly confuse being sorry for a sin with the idea of repenting of that sin.
The Apostle Paul was happy, not because the Corinthians were made sorry for their
sins, but because they allowed their sorry to lead them to repentance.
Here Isaiah makes it clear that God wants “the evil of your doings” taken from
before His eyes. To make that happen, we must become aware of our sins, be
sorrowful for having committed them and verbalize that sorrow, make a decision to
turn from them, and then actually turn away from them and do our best not commit
them again. This is the process of repenting.