10 Minutes
There is a fierce war happening for our souls. God wins the war, but the battles are ours. Without the whole of the holiness of truth and the vitalness of faith in God, many will be vanquished by deceit. It is when we allow the enemy any advantage through spiritual immaturity or ignorance. There are many who know not how to, or prefer not to reason to check their beliefs prayerfully against the Word of God for fear of being found wrong. It’s a natural heart condition. What the enemy wants more is for you to deny truth, for that is lacking faith and whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Sin is so frightful, so destructive to the soul, that no human thought or act can in any degree diminish its lethal effects. Some regret the consequences of not reasoning to discover truth but regret is futile to pleasing God. Godly sorrow is of so much more sufficient strength to cancel out the offense and to commit to God. Godly sorrow gives us an adequate view of sin that our unceasing gratitude for the grace of God is discovered in the clearing of ourselves. This grace by faith alone enhances the value of godly sorrow by positioning it as a sign of election to heaven. And so, God gives His people repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. It is both a command and a gift. Both lead to life. In one sense, being granted repentance is God’s offer. While in another sense being granted repentance is our decision. But to be clear, God grants this opportunity to everyone. God is in this last day breaking into new groups of people. This being done gives us the opportunity to suffer for the cause of Christ.
Godly sorrow for sin, any sin, is a hatred of sin, all sin, and a true grief of the soul for having offended God, with a firm...purpose of sinning no more. Repentance, without excuse, without evasion...the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There's no regret for that kind of sorrow. Sorrow is to express an unbearable sadness for having grieved God who is very close to us in our brokenheartedness. As God searches the heart of the truly repentant, He sees one with a contrite spirit. He chooses him or her as His friend. He desires to remain with that person because the Lord takes pleasure in His people. God’s purpose in His people makes us more than ordinary. In challenging moments, we are to consider circumstances. Yet, what is the point of repenting of a sin while remembering the pleasure that was derived rather than the pain caused, the cost that God paid. Is true repentance never doing those things again? Is this some form of nostalgia of a thing enjoyed? Why can’t we forget our sins? God did not promise that we would not remember our sins. Remembering will help us avoid making the same mistakes again. But if we stay true and faithful, the memory of our sins will be softened over time. This will be part of the needed healing and sanctification process.
We are to have a different inner attitude toward sins we’ve committed. This is called repentance. To repent means to view something done against the word of God as sinful. We cannot always make amends with those we’ve brought into sin, however we can determine to live according to God’s will. Faith in the word of God to forgive and to cleanse must be exercised. Freedom from sin does not always mean freedom from guilty feelings. Even when our sins are forgiven, we still remember them. Have the courage to be completely open and honest before the Lord. We are to plead with God to search us. He knows our hearts, our thoughts. He can lead us, if we be willing, in the way everlasting. We are to treat these unwanted memories as accusations. And we are to know that there is One who is pleading for us with his Father. The godly sorrow for the sin done and forgiven is part of that suffering that causes us to cease to sin altogether. Bringing us to a heartfelt conviction of sin, a contrition over the offense to God, a turning away from the sin. Repentance must be rooted in a high importance on God, not a high assessment on oneself. Only then can turning away from sin towards holiness truly be called repentance.
When the former pleasures of sin enters the thought we must pray hardily to elevate our souls through divine discipline to God’s glory. Fight mightily for the restoration of one’s experiential communion with God.
Having godly sorrow warrants close examination. It is the complete abandonment of evil and the turning to God. It is the heart-rending recognition of embracing God and all that He desires. Godly sorrow recognizes rationalization, the selfish attempt to justify one’s moral laxity. Knowing that even the thought of irrationality is sin and ultimately against God. Godly sorrow is our being so broken as to how we treated God with such disregard that we become blinded to all other aspects or objects of our behavior. If we are not genuinely offended at ourselves then there is no repentance.
When God counsels us to have the mind of Christ we are not to enter into a spirit of self-righteousness. That does not give us any moral or spiritual superiority above others. It is that we might daily strive after complete and sinless obedience to God out of His good-pleasure, covenant mercy, and inexplicable grace. We are to rise to a higher measure of faith and perfection and that, only by the fruits of God's common goodness towards us. We are not yet as God would have us be. Old sins remembered but not cherished, are wholesome to the soul to help believers to remember dark facts about themselves as the path to mortifying self is kept fresh before us. Our love to God would be purer because our gratitude would be warmer. Our adoring praise for His electing love would be more full and ardent than it is. We should cause injury to others and to Christ less often than we do. Our heads would hang lower with zealous repentance and our talk would be more exclusively of a cross and of a loving caring Savior. The hate associated with the thoughts of former sin should be for the sin, not for the remembering. We are but brands plucked from the burning. Remember, the God who promises to pardon, promises also to chasten His children. And revisiting with pleasurable thoughts our sins of the past is as being beat with the rod. Not crying out as though in physical pain only, but also the afflicting of our soul as we distress our relationship with God.
O, what the meeting of our trials are to accomplish in our welcoming God’s chastening. It is a part of the respect which we owe to God's holiness and love. God's chastisement, after all, is an expression of His anger. It is the anger of a Father, certainly, and not of a Judge. But it is anger nonetheless. Indulgent thoughts of past sins repented of, must be prayed away with profound regret, with the awareness that our present self is to be suspiciously watchful over our own heart, always hungry for more holiness. It is a sign of great ignorance when a believer is at ease with his present state or at too great peace with himself. These thoughts permit us to buffet the heart and the mind and bring it into subjection. Though forgiven, there is still this indwelling sin not yet cleansed from the sanctuary whereby we groan within ourselves. Until our change there is to be a sad recollection of the sins we had committed against Christ before his return. We will not only have this godly sorrow, we will have a gospel sorrow for the sins we have committed in the course of life. Not only for sins done after conversion, but also for the old sins purged of our unregenerate days. Being in godly sorrow, we have not that haunting fear of divine vengeance.
Comments