Actually, that is repenting from Unbelief, to Belief in Jesus.
That is "Faith is counted as righteousness".
Real Repentance, that God sees as Faith, is when you hear the Gospel, and you BELIEVE IT and receive Christ as your Savior.
You have turned from unbelief, by FAITH in Christ. = Repentance.
God does not force you, he only requires it of you.
When you give God your faith in Christ, God gives you The Salvation that Christ announced from the Cross......"IT is finished".
I don't have any faith in Christ except what God, out of the riches of His mercy, gives me, works in me, and sustains in me by His grace.
Without faith repentance isn't possible. For repentance comes when I, mired and filled with myriad sin, behold myself naked and exposed in the mirror of God's Law: For the Law says "Do this" and I don't do it. God has said, "Love your neighbor", and yet I don't love my neighbor; God has said, "Love the Lord your God" and I have not. I am truly, and really, and fully without any righteousness.
The Law shows this to me, and I despair. But despair on its own is only death, hence the Law is called a curse on account of sin. But repentance comes at the meeting place of despair and grace, where I confess I am a sinner, where I acknowledge and despair over my sin and God, rich in mercy, also says, "You are forgiven".
It is forgiveness that transforms despair into hope. And thus true repentance cannot exist apart from faith, for without faith I have despair but no hope.
But God meets me in my unworthiness, in my sin, in my possessing nothing and says, "I forgive you". Christ suffered and died, and there at Mt. Calvary God declares me righteous on Christ's account (Romans 5:18), so that when I hear this Good News God says, "See what I have done for you, believe, it is done already" And thus faith lifts me up, and makes me a new person. I was dead, but now I am alive. I had nothing, but now I have everything.
Without faith I would only despair.
But with faith I have hope, and now behold God clearly, no longer hidden behind the dark storm cloud of His righteous glory and majesty in the Law; but revealed and shown to me in the Person of His Son who became flesh and suffered and died for me. For "no one has ever seen God, but the only-begotten Son who is at the Father's side, has made Him known" (John 1:18), so the Lord can say, "If you have known Me you have known My Father as well", and "No one comes to the Father but by Me". I can only know God through Christ, and that means faith.
-CryptoLutheran