Is Repentance a Work We Perform or a Gift We Receive?

Chris Brauns argues that seeing repentance as a gift vs. a work changes how we pray for ourselves and how we pray for other people.

Religion May 31, 2026 0 2 Add to Reading List

Is Repentance a Work We Perform or a Gift We Receive?

May 29, 2026 by: Chris Brauns

A Gift God Gives

One of the first points we need to understand about repentance is that it’s fundamentally a gift. In Acts 11:18: “When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, ‘Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.’” It is a gift that God gives.

Paul says something similar in Timothy. He says to young pastors, concerning those who oppose him, that he must gently instruct and hope that God will grant them repentance, leading them to a knowledge of the truth. So repentance is a gift that God gives.

Now, when we understand that, it changes how we pray for ourselves and how we pray for other people. God, would you give me the gift of repentance? Would you show me those blind spots I don’t even know about? And that’s the thing about blind spots. You don’t see them. Would you grant the gift of repentance to people I love?

Now, there’s a mystery there because we still have to repent, and the people we’re concerned about still have to repent, and we get huge theological discussions trying to put all of that together. But we need to know fundamentally that repentance, as the Westminster Standards say, is a saving grace. It is a gift God gives.

Chris Brauns is the author of The Way of Repentance: Embracing God’s Gift for a Transformed Life.

Chris Brauns (DMin, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is the senior pastor at the Red Brick Church in Stillman Valley, Illinois. He has served in pastoral ministry for over thirty years. His books include Unpacking Forgiveness and When the Word Leads Your Pastoral Search.

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