Are You Ready to Repent and Change Your Ways?

Often, salvation is presented without the need to repent, i.e. abandon your sins. It is an easy cheap grace. This is one of the reasons that people can claim the title of "Christian" and keep habitually sinning. Even Luther understood the necessity of repentance as the following story reveals:

Luther was one day seated in the confessional at Wittenburg. Many of the townspeople came successively and confessed themselves guilty of great excesses: adultery, licentiousness usury, ill-gotten gains -- such were the crimes acknowledged. He reprimands, corrects, instructs. But what is his astonishment when these individuals reply that they will not abandon their sins! Greatly shocked the pious monk declares that, since they will not promise to change their lives, he cannot absolve them. The unhappy creatures then appeal to their letters of indulgence; they show them, and maintain their virtue. But Luther replies that he has nothing to do with these matters, and adds, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." They cry out and protest; but the doctor is immovable. They must "cease to do evil, and learn to do well, or else there is no absolution.