There are plenty of Christians, who just want to go to church, and never to be challenged to be a better person – perhaps because they consider themselves already to be a good person, but also more likely because they don’t want to be reminded of their faults and their failings. Yet, all of us have room for improvement and therefore all of us have character faults that we need to repent from, especially those faults which are detrimental not only to our own being but to other people, as well. Yet, through it all, few people actually want to own up to their sins, and even fewer want to do something constructive to correct them.
We read in the Holy Scripture, “Jesus answered them, “Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick do. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5: 31-32). So clearly part of Jesus' mission, if not the main part, was to awaken the people to change their wicked ways so that they would rise up and therefore do right, and not, therefore, to fall down and continue to do wrong.
This world is a proving ground, and all those who believe that simply accepting Christ as their savior, will somehow be good enough to reach Heaven, have sadly got it wrong. What we think, say, and do always has consequences, not just for ourselves, but also for those that we interact with, day by day, which is why we need to repent from our sinfulness and determine to do better and thereby to be of benefit for those that we congregate with and influence.
To somehow believe that Christ entered this world, never to challenge us to become what we ought and should be, is to misunderstand the mission of Christ. Christ came to awaken us from the errors of our ways, and thereby to make us better people, which is why we need to not only to recognize our sins and errors but also that we have an obligation to overcome them. Indeed, it is never too late to do the right thing, though time may be short, and even though there are those sinful things that we have done or have occurred that cannot be changed; yet, our attitude and our doing can be changed for the better in the present, and the sooner that we do so, the better it will be for us.
All those that believe in an easy Christianity, in which, not much of anything is demanded of us, and pretty much we’re considered to be okay, if we behave civilly, most of the time, have got it wrong. Christianity is an active faith, which necessitates us actually doing something of merit for ourselves and for others, and fundamentally this requires us to repent of our sinfulness, and when weak we are advised to lean upon others of good moral strength, so as to build the good character to be a better person, so that we can become that which we were always meant to be, which requires good purpose, sacrifice, and the staying on the straight and narrow, through our conscious repentance that doing of the wrong thing, is never going to be right.