From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Matthew 4:17
Since we read this in family scripture study last night, I've been thinking about why the Savior would start His ministry with the word "Repent." Though it's one of the first principles of the gospel, it isn't the first. The first principle of the gospel is Faith, so why didn't He start with that? Perhaps it was because the people He was teaching already had faith, but they weren't quite living up to it? That would make sense with the pharisees and the sadducees, already having a knowledge of the scriptures and a belief in them, but not really living up to the spirit of the law. They had the correct teachings; they just needed to repent and live them.
Come to think of it, that condition describes a lot of us as well. Many people, including society as a whole, already know more about God and the gospel and being good people than their actions may reflect. If Jesus Christ came down right now and began preaching, I wouldn't be at all surprised if, after introducing Himself, the first thing He told us was to repent. We, especially we members of the church, have more truth than we regularly live up to, partly because God has blessed us with about as much guidance as a person can be expected to follow. It's only normal for us to not be living up to all of it, but God would still want us to try.
It would mock the Savior’s suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross for us to expect that He should transform us into angelic beings with no real effort on our part. Rather, we seek His grace to complement and reward our most diligent efforts.
For those of us who know, or at least have some idea, what God wants us to do and who aren't doing it as much as we should, God's most likely counsel to us can be summed up in one word: Repent. If that's true, perhaps the Savior's initial message makes more sense than I thought.
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