Repentance is the preparation of our hearts for God. Before God can build in our lives, He must first clear away the debris and clutter. Before He can plant good seed, He must remove the weeds. Otherwise, we will always be a mixture. The seeds of sin will choke the good seed.

Repentance eliminates our inner deviousness, enabling us to be direct with God. 

Until repentance has done a complete work, we avoid being fully open and direct with God about our need. We hide behind excuses and erect defenses to keep ourselves from knowing what is really going on inside. But repentance clears away all lies and rationalizing, and we are then able to call sin sin and allow God to come to the heart of our need. We welcome His remaking of our inner landscaping. 

“The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain” (Isa. 40:3, 4). 

Repentance cleanses the “land of our heart” from bad seeds.

It is not enough to cut down the bad plants of external sin; the roots must be pulled and the seeds must be destroyed. Land which has not been cultivated must be cleansed by repeated plowing up; once is not enough. Such fallow ground, uncultivated land, must undergo successive plowing to break up all hard clods and to deeply purge the soil of all remaining seeds dropped by birds or brought by the wind. Neglected land does not become a desert, but a wilderness. It grows bad seed if not used for good seed. This is what the prophet Jeremiah was talking about when he said: 

“For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem . . .” (Jer. 4:3, 4).

Repentance is the digging down deep to establish foundations on solid rock. 

The taller a building, the deeper the foundation. The foundation must support the entire structure. For this reason, God does not attempt to build His new life upon our surface habits alone; He insists on stripping us to our base and beginning “from scratch,” as they say. Jeremiah’s call as a prophet of repentance emphasizes the necessity of the destructive work of God before the building can begin. 

“Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant” (Jer. 1:9, 10).