When and how does repentance occur in the life of a Christian?

Don Hart explains in this video that there is a point where saving knowledge and repentance occur in a Christian’s life. There are different ways that God can save us and bring us to a saving knowledge of Himself. For example, not all of us will have a conversion experience as Paul did on his way to Damascus.

After we are saved, there is a notable difference in our lives and we are a new creature. A repentant person turns away from sinful desires and patterns and turns toward Jesus Christ. There is a single time of repentance when a person comes to Christ. But, a regenerate person needs to continually repent throughout their entire life.

Acts 3:19 (NKJV) – “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” 

I would describe it frankly as both, that there is a point When a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ comes, at some point in a person's life, and sometimes that can be gradual, children that grow up in Christian homes, often they don't have a Damascus Road experience like Saul, then the apostle Paul had. There are different ways in which God saves us and brings us to a saving knowledge of himself. And yet when he does that, there is repentance. There's a difference. We are a new creature.

And that's really at the heart of repentance. It is that we have become a new creature and we're not a creature that travels in the same direction, loves the same things, follows after the same things that we did before. We turn away from those things and we follow after the Lord Jesus Christ. And so there is a difference. There is repentance, a singular noticeable time of repentance when a person comes to Christ.

But then the regenerate person lives the rest of their life needing over and over and over continually to repent again to God.