Question
Hi Gramps,
I love to read all of your answers! I have a question. After you have gone to the bishop and told him your sins…and prayed for forgiveness. What is next? Of course never do the sin again…feel godly sorry for what you have done…but what if your sin was something like an affair and had a child from the affair…or a child out of wedlock? What do you need to do to “repay” Jesus? How do you know your “done” and it is finished… and your forgiven? Plus after you have gone though the repentance process do you ever need to tell another bishop…Like when moving into a different ward…or when a different bishop is called? Thanks so much.
Bella
Answer
Dear Bella,
Repentance is more a matter of the heart than of the mind. In other words, it seems to be more associated with how we feel than with how we think. We think, “I’d better not do that again.” We feel revulsion for the kind of thing in which we were involved.. In D&C 58:42-43 we read,
Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.
By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins–behold, he will confess them and forsake them.
The idea of forsaking something is not just to not do it again. It is to get it out of our system–to change our character so that we wouldn’t be caught dead doing such a thing again. When we do that we will be a different person, and there will then be no need of reflecting on the sin, or wondering about it, etc. It will be as if it had been done by someone else–the person we used to be but no longer are. Then we may know that we are “done,” or finished with it. Then it is no longer necessary to bring it up in any conversation or interview.
Here’s the problem–when Satan can no longer tempt us to repeat the evil that he inspired in the first place, he tries to make us continually feel badly for what we did. If repentance is more involved with feeling that it is with thinking, and if we continue to feel badly, in a sense Satan is still in control. If we reflect for a minute on the knowledge that the Savior paid the FULL PRICE for our sins, when we have repented, they are done with. If the Savior then says, I, the Lord, remember them no more, should we not also remember them no more? Keeping them with us, wondering about whether we are “done” or not, would seem to indicate a lack of faith in the efficacy of the Savior’s great atoning sacrifice. So my advise would be to forget it, and get on with your life.
Gramps
