how repentance looks

Hate evil, and love good,

and establish justice in the gate;

it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts,

will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Amos 5:15

The prophet Amos issues a call to repentance even as his prophetic message pictures painful judgment to fall on the house of Israel. There is hope beyond the heartache and an offered renewed relationship even in the midst of prophesied pain. God desired repentance from His people, even as He prepared judgment on a stubborn and unbelieving nation.

This repentance could be seen in three ways. First, the people must hate sin. They must see their actions, born from sinful hearts, as wrong and must hate the wrong they have done and thought. When we excuse our sin even when we are confronted, we cannot yet repent. We must hate sin to truly find grace. We must be repulsed by the ugliness of our evil. We must sometimes even repent of not hating sin enough. And when we hate that we have within us the desire to love our sin, we can begin to understand repentance.

Repentance must also be seen by loving righteousness. It seeks to love what God loves. It sets its affections on things above. It wants to love what is good and finds pleasure in God and the good things He is and does. We must love good, not begrudge the good, in order to be truly repentant.

The first two parts are attitudes and affections. The last part of this call to repentance is action. Those who hate evil and love good will seek to establish God’s justice. Their actions among other people will be just and fair first. Their repentant moral affections will want the right things done in the world. They will be people of justice like God is a God of justice, hating evil and loving righteousness.