I don't know that I can deal with this subject adequately, because it is a central issue. Along with agency and the atonement, it is a main part of the plan of salvation.
God gave us our agency, which is an essential part of the plan. We must choose to be like Him, if we want to truly develop those characteristics. They cannot be forced upon us.
However, agency gives us the opportunity to to make our own choices, and being mortal, we all make at least some wrong choices. The atonement provides forgiveness and course corrections, if we will only repent.
True repentance is the process of becoming more like our Heavenly Father. We discard behaviors that are not like his, and replace them with behaviors that are Christlike.
Some tend to think of repentance as a sort of punishment, where we have to change our ways. This is not correct. It is an opportunity provided by a loving Father to allow us to recover from our mistakes and still progress to become like Him even after our errors.
There are steps to repentance: recognizing error, feeling a desire to change and a sorrow for having done wrong, confession, making it right where possible, by making what restitution we can, and forsaking the incorrect behavior permanently. None of this is easy. None of it can be done without the Lord's help. Some errors also require confession to and help from a Bishop or other authorized servant of the Lord.
The wonderful miracle is that, when we sincerely repent, the Lord forgives and forgets our errors, remembering them no more; and that He then applies the atonement to us, which literally cleans us of our stains and changes us for the better. The entire plan of salvation, the entire goal of the "immortality and eternal life of man" would fail without this process.
I am very grateful for repentance in my life. I am now a better man that I used to be, thanks to this privilege. And, if I continue to repent as I should, my progress and improvement will continue until I am blessed with eternal life and exaltation.
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