May 2004 - Faith FAQ
Does God forgive us when we do something wrong?
When you do something wrong, you hurt others, you hurt yourself and you hurt God. The Bible tells us that God will always forgive us when we are truly sorry for what we have done and when we ask for forgiveness. God knows what is inside our hearts. If we don't really mean it, God knows that, too.
God wants us to repent. To repent means more than just feeling sorry for what we have done wrong. To repent means to turn away from that behavior and try to never do it again.
That is how we know that Zacchaeus was truly changed. He was so sorry for what he had done that he repaid everyone he had ever cheated by giving them back four times the money he had stolen. He even gave away half of all his stuff to the poor!
When we are truly sorry for what we have done wrong, we want to try to make it up to the people we have hurt.