Studying Repentance Part 2 | The Red Headed Hostess

This post is part of a series of tutorials of different ways to use your TOPICS journals.

All of the tutorials will be about REPENTANCE.

I am hoping to show you different ways you can be creative in your studying, and keep things fresh and fun. (Even if you don’t have one of these journals… I hope this will still show you some ways to consider studying your scriptures.)

This is the second of the tutorials, here is the first.

I started by putting “Repentance” right in the middle of the right side of the page.

I printed that off on my computer, but if you look closely, you can see that I am covering up my own writing that I wasn’t so happy with.

By the way… this is a good technique you can use as you are teaching a class or your family.

Have them write, or glue, the topic right in the middle of their journal page and as you discuss the topic, they can write all around the topic what they are learning.

This could also be great for family scripture study.

You could have a CHAPTERS journal dedicated to family scripture study,

and you could write down thoughts your family had as you study, and you could have a TOPICS journal dedicated to Family Home Evening.

What a great way that could be to record those family moments.

After I put “repentance” in the middle of the page, I just started writing things around the topic.

I thought of things I may want to use or share

if I were to teach about this topic in a lesson or talk sometime.

Also, I think about one day when my children inherit this journal,

these are some things that I would want them to think about.

And last, if my children ever come to me with a question about this topic,

we can just turn to my journal page together and read what is there.  Because, lets face it, when they come to me I may not be having the best day, but clearly they are ready to learn, so I need to help them because they are ready.  I really believe the Spirit can prepare us far, far in advance, and by writing down what we have learned, we have it at our fingertips and we can learn, again, what the Spirit had taught us long ago.

Above you can see that I wanted to differentiate between being sorry we were caught doing something wrong

with having godly sorrow for having sinned.  Underneath each attitude I thought of fruits of that attitude.

For example, if I am repenting because I was caught,

then I fear man’s judgment of me and that is my motivation.  I am probably not yet being motivated by what God thinks of me.  Embarrassment could be one of my main feelings.  I probably had no intention of confessing had I not been caught.  I may feel sorry that the sin has been made known to others.

Godly sorrow is very different.

What God thinks of me is far more important than what others think of me.  I feel sorrow that Christ had to suffer for what I did.  I feel sorrow for the damage I did to my spirit.  I feel sorrow for damage I did to others’ spirits.  I feel sorrow that I loved what the world offered more than what Heavenly Father had been wanting me to do.  And I start to understand  the eternal perspective of my actions.

You could list a lot more things here.

This could be a great conversation to have with your family.

I also listed some talks on this page that I know have excellent stories or teachings about repentance.

I just included a brief description along with the reference so I can find it quickly.

Here is another one.  Such a GREAT talk!

Here I just did a simple breakdown of the consequence of Sin and if we do or don’t repent.

If you look closely, I think you can read most of what is there.

This is a GREAT conversation to have with your children.

Somehow, Satan makes people think that when they are rebelling and sinning that they are “tough”.  That couldn’t be a greater lie, and this list helps reveal that.

This question stemmed from the breakdown in the previous picture.

“What characteristics or qualities must someone have in order to truly repent?”

I think it is so important that we all realize that those who repent are strong and courageous.  They aren’t “sinners”, they are “repenters”.

The Celestial Kingdom is going to be full of them.

Here I wrote down 6 elements of repentance.

Every year we would give the seminary kids a doctrinal competency test that would be sent to seminary headquarters.  We would get the results back and I could use them to know what things I needed to focus on more directly in class.  The only short essay question was about repentance and what must be involved in order to have full and complete repentance.  These are the six elements they were looking for:

1. Faith in the Atonement
2. Godly sorrow
3. Confession
4. Abandonment of sin
5. Restitution
6. Righteous living

Here is where you can record appropriate quotes and scriptures.