Thoughts on repentence

I've begun studying the gospel of Matthew, a study which should take me through the entire year. Just today I was reading and studying the idea of repentence as contained in the preaching and ministry of John the Baptist. Very briefly, his teaching was that repentence as 2 sides. There is the negative side of repenting of sin. But there is also the positive side of bringing "forth fruit in keeping with repentence" (Matthew 3:8) The phrase 'in keeping with' means having equal weight or worth. This means that John says that your positive fruits after repentence should have an equal weight to your repentence.

How to put this another way? When one turns FROM sin, one must naturally turn TOWARDS something else. That is positive fruit. Paul defines fruit like this as "deeds appropriate to repentence" (Acts 26:20)

It is not enough merely to have repented from sin. True repentence shows itself through action. When one has truly repented, the actions in ones life, by necessity, change from sin to acts of righteousness, or 'fruit'