Turn Away – The Presidential Prayer Team

Repent, therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. – Acts 3:19

The word “repent” is typically associated with being sorry or making amends. The apostle Peter gave a sermon in Acts 3 that challenged this understanding of what repentance means. At the beginning of the chapter, Peter and John healed a lame man in Jesus’ name as they were entering the temple. People began gathering around the three men to see what had happened, which is when Peter addressed the crowd. He used this moment to preach the news of Jesus to all the people, calling them to repent of their sin and turn toward Jesus.

Peter was not trying to make people feel guilty or sorry. He wanted to encourage them to believe in the saving, transforming work of God. The repentance that Peter was calling the people to was one of actively turning around and becoming permanently right with God through faith in Christ. Even the idea of their sins being “blotted out” held different imagery for the people, as ink in the ancient world was different than it is today. It did not hold the same properties that it does now and could usually be easily wiped off of paper with a damp cloth.

This is the same repentance that Christians today are called to. Repentance does not mean apologizing out of guilt for doing something wrong. It is an act of hope and trust in God, who is ready and willing to give you a clean slate. In your prayers today, remember to thank God for this incredible gift and pray that more and more Americans, including government officials, would repent, as Peter called the early believers to do.

Today’s Verse: Acts 3:19

Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out,

All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Recommended for further reading: Acts 3:18-26

¹⁸But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. ¹⁹Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, ²⁰that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, ²¹whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. ²²Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. ²³And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ ²⁴And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. ²⁵You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ ²⁶God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.”