Was God okay with all the polygamy in the Old Testament? That's just one of the questions we'll be

answering on today's edition of Core Christianity. Well, hi, I'm Bill Meyer along with Pastor

Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the

Christian life every day. We'd love to hear from you, and our phone lines are open right now. You can

call us for the next 25 minutes or so. Here's the number. It's 1-833-843-243-26-73. So easy to spell

it on your phone. It's 833-the- Core. You can also post your question on one of our social media sites. You can interact with Adrile right now live in the studio on our YouTube channel. And you can always email us at Questions at Core Christianity.com. Well, first up today, here is a voicemail we received from one of our

callers earlier this week. Hey, Pastor, Andrea. My name is Jasmine. My question is, how do I

truly repent? Hey, Jasmine. I appreciate that question short and sweet, but also very, very important.

And I think that there are a lot of Christians who have this question, especially if they're struggling with a particular sin or pattern of sin where, you know, they say, God, I'm sorry for this. I repent.

And then find themselves struggling with the same sin the next day, the next week.

And then they begin to question, well, did I really repent? Did I truly repent then and there?

And so a very practical question here that many people have. First, repentance is just a concept,

I think in the Bible is very simple. It means in the New Testament a change of mind, often associated with turning away from sin or self and turning toward God. In other words, it's not just feeling remorse over something bad that we've done and wallowing and guilt and shame, you know, beating ourselves

up for our failures. That's not what repentance is. It's turning away from our sins and turning

toward the Lord, receiving His grace. There's a positive element. You know, we're thinking about

faith in Jesus Christ.

And I would say, you know, part of it is just confession. Oftentimes repentance and confession

of sin go hand in hand. When we're confronted by our sins in life, a lot of times our tendency

is to minimize those sins. Maybe we'll sort of confess, you know, we'll confess a part of it, or we'll say

it wasn't that bad. I know I messed up, but it really wasn't that bad. We have this tendency to

minimize, to pretend like we're better than we really are. And so minimizing sin is not repentance,

and neither is blame shifting. That's the other thing oftentimes when we're

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