The Life Challenges Podcast
The Life Challenges Podcast
Unwrapping Repentance: Finding Identity in Christ
Imagine standing before a mirror every morning and declaring aloud: “I am a redeemed child of God. I am a forgiven child of God. I am a saved child of God.” According to our guest John Schuetze, LPC, DMin, MDiv, BC-TMH, this simple practice can transform how we understand repentance and reshape our relationship with guilt and shame.
In this profound exploration of Christian identity and repentance, Professor Schuetze draws from his 15 years as a pastor, 28 years teaching at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, and his ongoing work as a licensed professional counselor at Christian Family Solutions specializing in grief, trauma, and marital therapy. He unpacks repentance not as a mere acknowledgment of wrongdoing, but as a fundamental reorientation of how we see ourselves.
The conversation reveals how sin affects us in three distinct ways: our own sinful actions, the painful effects of others’ sins against us, and the general presence of sin in our fallen world. Each dimension requires a different response, but all must be addressed through the lens of our primary identity as God’s children.
For those struggling with persistent guilt despite knowing God’s forgiveness, Schuetze offers both spiritual wisdom and practical neurological insights. He explains how negative thought patterns create well-worn neural pathways that must be gradually replaced with healthier, gospel-centered ones. “It's not a perfect faith that saves us,” he reminds listeners, “it’s Christ that saves us.”
As we enter the Lenten season, this episode serves as a timely reminder that while sin is indeed serious—“we don't have a little Savior who died for a bunch of little sins”—God’s grace is even greater. True repentance means living in that tension, continually returning to our identity in Christ while striving for progress, not perfection, in our daily walk.
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On today's episode… is what we get from Jesus. Progress is what we get as we grow in our Christian life with sanctification.
Paul Snamiska:Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. People today face many opportunities and struggles when it comes to issues of life and death, marriage and family, health and science. We're here to bring a fresh biblical perspective to these issues and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
Christa Potratz:Hi and welcome back. I'm Krista Potratz and I'm here today with Pastor Jeff Samuelson, and we also have a special guest joining us today. We have Pastor and Professor John Schutze with us today. We're really excited to have him on the podcast and the topic that we're going to be discussing with him is the topic of repentance, and so just very excited to have you on today and we'd just love it if you'd start by telling us a little bit about yourself.
John Scheutze:Yeah, thank you for having me. So, as was mentioned, I'm John Schutze. I served as a pastor for 15 years and in the past 28 years I served as a professor at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, teaching systematic theology, pastoral theology maybe, to unpack those. Systematic theology is doctrine and then pastoral theology is the practical application of that, and in pastoral theology I especially focused on pastoral counseling and I also served as the campus counselor on the campus of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. I'm also a licensed professional counselor on staff at Christian Family Solutions, where I focus on grief, loss and trauma and also marital therapy. I married my wife and I live in Columbia, tennessee. We have four grown children and 10 grandchildren.
Christa Potratz:Wonderful. Thank you so much for being on today. Like I said, we're going to talk about this topic of repentance, and one of the things to maybe just kind of start with is just generally defining sin and what happens when we sin.
John Scheutze:So, in a simple way, sin is any time we violate God's law. That's the simple definition. But of course it's more complex than that, because if we divide it up between believer and unbeliever, the main sin of an unbeliever is their unbelief, whereas for us, as Christians, we have that daily sin that we struggle against, but yet we're living in a state of grace. And so it's really a big difference here between believer and unbeliever when we talk about sin. Because with unbelievers we sometimes think well, you know, how do I change their outward behavior? We focus on the second table of law, and that's what unbelievers often do too. They focus on certain aspects of the second table of law, the commandments that they can keep or that they want to keep and there are a lot of good people in the world who do some very helpful and kind things to others. But if they haven't kept the first table of law in other words, honoring God, loving the Lord, their God, with all their heart, soul, strength and mind, they're still living in unbelief, which is the main sin which they need to repent of and then to unpack that matter of sin even more.
John Scheutze:You know, I like to look at it from three different angles. We live with our own sin, the things that we do wrong. We live with the effects of the sins of others that often affect us very directly. And then, of course, we live with the presence of sin in the world, and all of those three affect us in different ways. You know, we live with our own sin and that can leave us with feelings of guilt and shame, even as Christians, after we know our sins are forgiven, but still we continue to beat ourselves up over them. The devil continues to accuse us of those sins.
John Scheutze:Then there's living with the sins of others and I deal with that a lot in my counseling, in grief loss and trauma, because I work with a fair number of survivors of childhood abuse, and so they're living in a very profound way with the effects of other people's sin, the abuse that they endured along the way, especially as children. And then, of course, with grief, loss and trauma. You also deal with the presence of sin in the world, whether it's natural disasters or whether it's just a matter of death which is the result of sin. So that's just kind of unpacking the simple concept of sin, but it affects us in so many different ways.
Christa Potratz:Thank you for doing that, because that really does pull it apart to make you think a little bit more about it. And I think too, even when we think of trying to minister to people or talk to people, even just in these terms of differences with viewpoints pertaining to life too. Sometimes, yeah, it's like the biggest hurdle is the unbelief and just remembering.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, and one of the things that goes along with unbelief very often is sometimes ignorance. Sometimes it's a deliberate unwillingness to consider the reality of sin, particularly of your own. It never happened to me I didn't do that many funerals but there are plenty of stories out there of pastors at least our well confessional Lutheran pastors doing a funeral service for someone, often who wasn't a very strong member of the church. But some relative comes up afterward really angry about the sermon. You called Jack a sinner in your sermon. Well, yeah, so are we all. But they reserve that term for the stuff that they consider really bad and it's not something that they realize is in that basic sense of this is an offense against God. It's not meeting the mark in any way.
John Scheutze:Yeah, that is so true.
Christa Potratz:Well then, you know, after we kind of define sin, taking a look now at repentance. So how would we go about defining repentance?
John Scheutze:Well, I think, looking at that same paradigm of believer versus unbeliever, well, I think, looking at that same paradigm of believer versus unbeliever, for an unbeliever, repentance is turning away from sin, acknowledging their own sinfulness and turning to Christ for forgiveness, and of course, we know that that's something only the Holy Spirit can work through the message of the gospel, of the gospel. But then for us as believers and I don't know how well we emphasize this, we know this, but I think we're better at and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just looking at it from my perspective but I think we're better with the law than we are with the gospel. And I think we're better at it because we understand it, we live it, we can relate to it, but the gospel is such a foreign thing. And so what I really need to emphasize to people and I realize I'm dealing with a clientele in my counseling profession that are struggling with sin on all those different levels, but what they really struggle with is knowing and confessing the fact that I am a child of God, I am a redeemed child of God, I'm a forgiven child of God, I'm a saved child of God, and I work with them on that. And it's really an important beginning place because out of that flows their ability to manage and cope with everything that sin has thrown at them. In a sense, whether it's their own sin and you know, often they're struggling with their own sins and with people who are struggling with trauma and have been abused in various ways, they can fall into any number of unhealthy behaviors, whether it's substance abuse, or I've had some that struggle with gambling, that struggle with shoplifting, that struggle with promiscuity. It can just go on and on and on.
John Scheutze:And what's important to understand is that we don't excuse the sin, but we do understand it, that it's kind of been a negative coping mechanism for them.
John Scheutze:And so how do you help them replace that negative one with helping coping mechanisms?
John Scheutze:Well, it really begins with their understanding that I am a child of God and I live in a state of grace because God has worked that repentance in my heart. He has led me to turn to him as my savior, and that's what's going to help me manage the sin from many different angles, whether it's my own sin and the negative patterns that I've gotten into, whether it's managing the effects of the sins of others that have had on my lives or simply dealing with the presence of sin in this world. I think is such an important factor when we begin from that starting point of I'm a child of God and so I like to focus on the gospel first rather than really hitting them with the law, because so many times, especially in mental health, they know the law, they're feeling guilty, they're feeling shame, and so what they really struggle with is the gospel you find that repentance becomes an issue kind of between the spouses, in the sense of well, he says he's repented, but I don't see it, or I don't know what repentance would look like for me.
Jeff Samelson:I don't know what it is. Can you elaborate on that at all?
John Scheutze:Yeah, absolutely. And, of course, repentance and forgiveness. When you talk about a couple, a marriage situation, as you mentioned there, you're dealing with repentance and really forgiveness on two different levels. We repent to God because of our sin and he forgives us. That's instantaneous, horizontal level. Where we repent to our marriage partner or other family members, then the forgiveness is on a horizontal level and that can often take time because it's part of our Christian life of sanctification and that's never perfect, it's never complete.
John Scheutze:And so people will doubt well, has that person really repented? Because they've done, they continue to do it. And, yeah, sin is a habit, we're never going to avoid it perfectly. But I emphasize to people you know, we're looking for progress, not perfection. Perfection is what we get from Jesus. Progress is what we get as we grow in our Christian life of sanctification. So that whole matter of repentance and forgiveness is so closely tied together.
John Scheutze:But what can make it complex is, you know, is the person sorry for what they've done? Do they own it? Are they working on it? Are they admitting it to the other person or are they kind of turning it back on the other person? Well, if you hadn't done that, I wouldn't have done this. A backhanded repentance, if you will, repentance with qualifications, and that happens many times too, where they sort of repent but they also put some of it on the other person, which may be the case too. But even if somebody did say something to me that I didn't like or that hurt me, it didn't give me the right to lash out or say something or do something. Owning it is so important.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, I often just think about that too. When we deal with God, on the other end is perfection, and when we deal with people, on the other end is perfection, and when we deal with people on the other end is a sinful human being. And so sometimes, like we're looking at least I have you know almost like looking for how God forgives me or what happens. I'm almost expecting that from another person, because it's so, because it's perfect when God does it, and you don't get that when you deal with other people.
John Scheutze:Yeah, we often have unrealistic expectations of the other person and healthy marriages aren't those where you have two perfect or nearly perfect people. I think we know that. But healthy marriages are where people are in a mindset of okay, there are certain things I may not like about my marriage partner. There are certain things my marriage partner may not like about me, but we tend to focus on the positive things and, of course, all of those flow out of our Christian faith and my recognition that I am a child with God and that my spouse, in a Christian marriage, that he or she is a child of God.
John Scheutze:And you know, how can I be Christ to that person? How can I treat that person as Christ would treat them? You know, I work with what I call Ephesians 5 skills. What does that look like in a marriage? On a practical level? God gives us the principle in Ephesians 5, but that's pretty general. Not that it's not beautiful, but it is pretty general. It's Christ loved the church. Okay, what does that look like? And try to unpack that for them. It means that, okay, I want my marriage partner to feel cherished, I want them to feel valued, I want them to feel loved. I want them to feel loved. I want them to feel respected. That's how Christ would treat them and that's how Christ treats me. So kind of unpacking some of that.
Christa Potratz:When we talk about our relationship with God. Why do people fail to repent? Is it just maybe sometimes they don't know what their sin is? Or, you know, why would people maybe not get to that place of repentance?
John Scheutze:Many in our society have worked really hard to take God out of the picture. And again, you have to work really hard because there's so much evidence, you know the fool says in his heart there is no God. We have that voice within us, that conscience, telling us that there is a God. We have evidence in the world around us that there is a God, and so it's not easy to suppress that, but we suppress it because we don't want to be held accountable, whether it's in life issues, you know, I don't want to be held accountable, but I want to do what I want, and if it means taking the life of an unborn or being in control of my own fate at the end, or anything in between, I want to be able to call the shots. So I think that's why an unbeliever, will you know, resist repenting because I don't want to be held accountable by anyone, and it's very much a part of our individualistic culture in North America and even in the Western world. I'm responsible for what I do, and if you don't like it, well, that's fine. And you do what you want, and as long as it doesn't affect me, that's fine.
John Scheutze:But then, when you talk about a believer, there are so many things that can complicate it. As I mentioned, a person's experience growing up can complicate it and of course, I also deal with that a lot in marital therapy, because when one or the other, or both, have come from a very difficult family environment, that's going to play out in their present relationship because they haven't seen it modeled growing up. Yeah, and to a certain extent they have the genetic makeup which plays a part too, whether it's a personality issue, a narcissistic personality issue, which could be very prominent and affect the marital relationship in many different ways, or whether it's something else. So it can be a lot of those factors that complicate the whole matter of marriage situation. You know, is this an individual issue that one or the other has to work on or is this a marital issue that the two of them have to work on? Because those are two very different things.
Christa Potratz:So when you we'll take it from a Christian perspective when you do something and okay, you realize that it's a sin, you repent, but then you still feel guilty, have given it to the Lord, you've said that you're sorry, you've repented but you still just feel really bad about One chart that I work with or one image that I work with is.
John Scheutze:At the center of this image is the fact that we're the child of God. That's our identity and we talk so much about, you know, identity, gender identity and so on. Or I identify with my work or my job, or my role, my relationship with others. Our identity is I'm a child of God and we're even our gender, you know, neither male nor female. Our ethnic background isn't our identity, it's our role as a child of God. That's our identity.
John Scheutze:And then, outside of that, you have all of these other things. I have my thoughts, I have my desires, I have my emotions, behaviors, I have life's experiences, all of those things which what often happens with a lot of people in life is these things get turned inside out Instead of our identity in Christ, shaping how I think, or shaping my emotions, shaping my behavior, shaping my desires, shaping how I view life's experiences, shaping my vocations, my gender, my ethnicity, all of those things. Instead we get turned inside out and it begins to be well, my behaviors begin to identify me, or my desires identify me, or my emotions identify me, and kind of. What your question was was focusing on emotion. I still feel guilty, I still feel shame over these things, and so simple difference between shame and guilt Guilt is I've done something bad, shame is I am something bad. Well, what I work with is helping them get those arrows going the right way, in other words, my identity as a child of God. How does that affect my emotions? How does that affect my behaviors? How does it affect my thoughts?
John Scheutze:And you know I tell people it's going to sound corny, but what I want you to do is, when you get up in the morning and look in the mirror, I want you to say out loud I am a redeemed child of God, I am a forgiven child of God, I am a saved child of God, and there are just countless adjectives you can put before that. But it's something where we need to remind ourselves and it has a greater impact when we say it out loud. But what I tell people is you are seeing yourself as God sees you, and just as it's a process of us forgiving others, so it's a process of us forgiving ourselves. And you know, lord, I believe help me overcome my unbelief. We're never going to have a perfect faith in the gospel. But again, it's not a perfect faith that saves us, it's Christ that saves us. But it's a process of helping them overcome some of those negative emotions, which can be very strong. It's really them forgiving themselves, because God forgave them, but we struggle to forgive ourselves.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, I've done some reading recently personal stuff and it comes up with cognitive behavioral therapy, which I know you're more than familiar with. How that does relate to a proper sense for the Christian of their identity that you set aside the negative thoughts that are not coming from your identity as a child of God and you retrain yourself to think the positive thoughts that do come from your identity as a child of.
John Scheutze:God and from a counseling perspective, I always tell people there's a spiritual dynamic here. You know that we've been talking about. There's also a neurological component that we're dealing with because when you look at it from a brain science perspective, we often do a really good job creating negative pathways in the brain, and so that's kind of our go-to pathway. It's like a pathway that you take through the woods or across the grass. When you take it again and again, it's going to our go-to pathway. It's like a pathway that you take through the woods or across the grass. When you take it again and again, it's going to be well worn. It's the easy pathway to go. But working both with the spiritual side and the neurological side, as you were talking about too, of thinking the positive instead of the negative, that's going to create healthier pathways in the brain and with time those unhealthy negative ones will grow over and it will be easier to recognize who we are in Christ, and that's a beautiful thing fail to repent.
John Scheutze:What happens or what damage does that do in our lives or even our relationship with God? Well, I suppose, if we're talking about repenting in the sense of something that threatens our faith, that's obviously very dangerous because we can fall from grace. If I say, well, I know God says this is wrong, but I'm going to do it anyway and I just keep doing it and I turn my back on God, that's falling away from grace, falling away from faith. But for us as Christians, if we're talking about that struggle between our new man and our old man, you know that's going to be a daily thing and sometimes I win, sometimes I lose.
John Scheutze:But the important thing is, you know, are we still fighting that fight? And of course, we're not alone in that fight because God is living in us. He's giving us that strength through the means of grace, through the gospel, through the sacraments, so we can win those battles, we can make progress, but only if we look at him instead of look inside of us. And again, that's the danger If we look inside of us for strength instead of looking outside of us to God and his word for strength, and to not beat ourselves up over the times when we fail, but rejoice in the forgiveness we have through Christ.
Christa Potratz:There are some things nowadays too.
Christa Potratz:I mean especially we'll just kind of take, for example, the living together outside of marriage as an example, and I think so many people maybe have even convinced themselves that this is just a cultural norm and almost like kind of a get with the times type of thing, that okay, maybe it wasn't right back then, but I mean now it's just an acceptable thing.
Christa Potratz:And I mean I know that there are many Christian people too that even just kind of just act like normal with it. You know, might even go to church with their person that they're living with, and it's just kind of this normal thing where people maybe on the outside kind of tend to look at that. Or I mean I guess people maybe in church would maybe tend to look at that and be like, well, hey, how can they do that? Do they see nothing wrong with that? Sometimes there's just this do they even know it's wrong? Is there any type of repentance there? And so in a situation like that, what would you really suggest to people, people that the outside looking in, I mean maybe just okay, I think that couple is living together and they don't see anything wrong with it, and then maybe two for that couple or a couple that runs into a situation like that.
John Scheutze:Yeah, I think what we always want to do is take the time to listen. We don't want to come with all guns blazing or anything like that attacking them. I don't know their story. What is their story? Why are they doing what they are doing? Did they have good role models growing up? And so I think we can go a long way with listening, because not only does that give us a better idea of where they're at spiritually, emotionally, but also it enables us to earn the right to speak to them.
John Scheutze:As you mentioned, is this a blind spot for them that hey, everybody's doing it? And I'm sure we've all run into people, run into Christians, that just assume you're living together before you get married and it kind of has become the norm of the new engagement, as was the case maybe in the 70s and 80s, where, okay, let's just try this out and we're not really committed to one another. It's kind of the new norm of when you're engaged, well, of course you're going to live together, you're already having sexual intercourse, and why pay for two apartments or two places to live? And so I think for a lot of people it's a blind spot that they haven't even given a second thought that really, this is wrong. Everybody's doing it. This is the new norm, and so I want to listen to them and understand where they're coming from.
John Scheutze:You know, they may have good reasons for living together, but it doesn't mean they're right reasons for living together. But you know, I want to understand their struggle, and I think some of the skittishness of getting married with the present generation flows out of the fact that a lot of them saw their parents divorce and experienced the pain of that, and so it's not that they don't believe in marriage, but they're so scared of divorce that they don't know if they want to get married, and so that complicates it too. But you know, as I said, I think where I want to start is I want to listen to them. Where are things at?
John Scheutze:You know, tell me about your life growing up, tell me about your struggles. People then move from there into okay. How do I, as a child of God, live now? And how do I have marriage and how do I have the best that God wants me?
Jeff Samelson:to have. This episode is probably going to be released right at or around the beginning of Lent, with Ash Wednesday and such. How would you say that it would be helpful for a Christian to be thinking about repentance and focusing on it during the season of Lent?
John Scheutze:Yeah, the season of Lent can often be obviously a sad, a solemn time of the year, but I think focusing on always keep the big picture in mind, don't just focus on the painfulness of Jesus' suffering, but what that means for us and how his cross is our cross, how he is our sin and we are his righteousness, so that Lent doesn't become well, what do I now have to give up for Lent?
John Scheutze:I know we have that practice, which I've never been real crazy about, but instead focusing on the fact that, well, I'm a child of God and this is how Jesus made me a child of God. So, yes, there's a time and a place to ponder over our sins, and that's such an important thing because we don't want to downplay the seriousness of our sin. I hope I didn't give that impression, because we don't have a little Savior that died for a bunch of our little sins that aren't all that really important. Sin is huge. It's an affront to God and the whole reality of eternal punishment shows what an affront sin is to God, because that's no little thing, eternal punishment. But the fact that Christ endured that, for us, shows God's love and how, in the midst of recognizing my great sin, wow, I have a great Savior, and that's really what Lent is all about.
Christa Potratz:Thank you very much, Pastor Schutze, for being here and for talking with us today. We really appreciate it. Is there anything else you'd like to mention on this subject for all of our listeners?
John Scheutze:We've touched upon the key points, but recognizing my identity as a child of God, I think it's such an important thing and I know it sounds simple. It sounds simplistic, but it's something that we all have to struggle with, because we know that's our identity and yet we live in that awkward time of the already and the not yet, Because we're still living with our own sin, we're still living with the sins of others, we're still living in the presence of sin in the world and it's all around us. It's really easy to get distracted, get consumed by that, and that's where I constantly have to remind myself you know, this is who I am in Christ, and what a beautiful thing that is.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, sometimes those simple things are the things we need to just tell ourselves over and over again. Well, thank you very much.
Jeff Samelson:Yes, thank you.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, we really appreciate it, and we want to thank all of our listeners for joining us too, and if you have any questions on this topic or any others, you can reach us at lifechallengesus. And yeah, we'll look forward to seeing you back next time. Thanks a lot.
John Scheutze:Okay, thank you, my caregiver. Bye.
Paul Snamiska:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it and sharing it with friends. We're sure you have questions on today's topic or other life issues. Our goal is to help you through these tough topics and we want you to know we're here to help. You can submit your questions, as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes, at lifechallengesus or email us at podcast at christianliferesourcescom. In addition to the podcasts, we include other valuable information at lifechallengesus, so be sure to check it out For more about our parent organization. Please visit christianliferesourcescom For more information or to learn more about our parent organization. Please visit ChristianLifeResourcescom. May God give you wisdom, love, strength and peace in Christ for every life challenge.
