The Beliefs of John Robert Stevens

Godly sorrow for sins is not repentance, though it works repentance (II Corinthians 7:10). Repentance is an act of faith. It is a turning away and a deep grieving over sin, but a believing for righteousness. There is nothing you can do that will please God except to believe Him.¹

Stevens did not teach a legalistic practice of repentance. He believed that repentance was an act of faith in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ; and that the believer is not only forgiven, but also transformed in the process (II Corinthians 5:17). “When men repent and believe upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, they shift into another life, a life to bless, a life to love…”² Repentance is not defined by melancholy or remorse, but by the fruit of change it produces in a believer’s life (Matthew 3:8). In this respect, Stevens advocated for a deep spiritual repentance, rather than a shallow emotional expression.

The repentance in your life must be total, because you are believing for God to completely forgive you and to literally stop the processes of judgment which would be heaped against you.³

The deepest level of repentance is the repentance for the sin nature itself. Instead of constantly turning to the Lord regarding every single sin, there is a repentance that deals with the root of the problem: the nature that causes the sin.

Many of us continually repent of the acts and the expressions of the flesh when we should repent of the basic nature of the flesh that prompts these acts and expressions in life. Do we trim the branches or do we put an axe to the root?⁴

Stevens also emphasized the need for repentance in every new step in God. The first message that was preached when Jesus came to the earth was “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). In order to move into new things in God, we must repent of the old and make room for the new. In this way, repentance is not only a response to sin, but also to old responses and conditionings. Since God is always leading His people into greater things, Stevens believed that repentance should be a way of life, and a constant part of our relationship with the Lord.

The term repentance appears 1,752 times in Stevens’ written materials.