To quote from my friend Jack Miller's book, Repentance:

"Penance... is a religious attitude deeply rooted in the human heart which prompts men to attempt to pay for their own sins by their good works and sufferings. Self-justification is the goal of this effort. In practice this means that man always has one more scheme for geting thigns right with God and conscience... He is a preparationist, that is, a sinner who is forever getting ready for grace. He wants to make himself worthy of grace so that God will reach out to him when once this work of preparation is completed... But he does not know that this is a terrible insult to God's grace... [but] the repentant man repudiates this whole process, with its self-justification and pretense" (pp. 21-22).

Tonight as I prepare to lead my Creekstone friends in worship, I want to be reminded that we do not come to prepare ourselves as worthy recipients of grace. We come to receive as unworthy sinners. All we have to offer God is our sin and self-righteousness. He is the giver—the one who died for the ungodly, that we might now celebrate the glory of his unmerited kindness, love and favor. In light of the cross, we can be confident that we are now sons and daughters. Accepted. Beloved. Righteous.

So will you repudiate penance (even repent of our penances), and embrace the gift-righteousness of Jesus with me?