“Repentance is not
so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequence”
Francios de la
Rochefocauld
As one who just got a driver’s license very recently, I
make sure that I always have my seatbelt on at all times. I do this to avoid the consequence of being
fined by a traffic officer. I have observed some drivers who drive without
their seatbelts on. And soon as they see a traffic officer, they quickly
“buckle up”, but as soon as they pass the traffic officer, they take off the
seatbelt again. Now to get to the point I need to make, there are also drivers
who disobey the rules of the road and when a traffic officer pulls them up,
they act sorry and promise not to do it again; yet do the very same thing again,
on the very same day. Showing remorse
for wrongdoing is only natural for every human being. That is the reason for
psychological exams done on people who commit serious crimes and yet show no
remorse. It’s not normal not to feel sorry for wrongdoing. But sometimes we can
get so used to doing something wrong that we do not feel guilty or sorry about
it anymore. I guess that is why we
pretend as if we are sorry so that at least we don't look too bad in the eyes
of those around us. But the other reason why we pretend to be sorry (and this
is my main point), is because we just want to be exempt from the consequence of
the sin. I want drive above the speed limit;
because I have developed a mechanism that will allow me to get away with it so
that I can do it over and over again.
Ted Bundy, a man who killed at least about 30 women in
the 70’s; pleaded not guilty to all his crimes. There are numerous biographies
of this guy on the internet, but there was one in particular that caught my
attention and this is what it said about his remorse for his sins: “Ted never
felt sorry for what he did; the only thing that he might have been sorry about
was being caught”. Now that pierced my heart because I then realized that I was
like that too and sometimes I still am. And Paul in his 2nd letter to the
Corinthians simply put it like this; “For the kind
of sorrow that God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in
salvation. There is not regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow,
which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death”. How many times have
you gone forward for prayer in tears after a sermon touched your heart and you
felt convicted to stop your habitual sin, only to find yourself doing it again?
I struggled with masturbation as a teenager and even after I gave my heart to
God it just would not go away. I pleaded
with God to take it away countless times, yet it remained. I used to cry in
prayer to God, promising never to do it again; yet I went back. It was like
taking 2 steps forward and then 10 steps backwards. After numerous failed
attempts, I started owning it as my little secret. Looking back at those days,
I realize that I had worldly sorrows which led me to not even feeling guilty
about the sin (spiritual death). I thought that I would evade the consequences
of masturbation by crying, but I needed to take another step further. I needed
to take steps towards God in repentance, and when I did that I was able to
break free, because now I was no longer scared of my mom walking in on me
masturbating, I knew that my heavenly father saw me and as much as I can cry
and pretend that I want to stop; He knew my heart. I now understood that he was not fooled by my
fake remorse, he wanted a genuine turning from the sin and a commitment of a
day to day relationship with God. So
when a couple have pre-marital sex and the girl is pregnant, the sin is not the
pregnancy; it is adultery. What they should feel sorry for is not that they
will have a child that they did not plan, but that they have sinned against God.
I learned that the hard way after years of struggling with the same sin; I
learned that the only way was to view sin from God’s point of view.
As a kid, when I knew that I did something wrong and that
I was going to get a hiding. I would cry as soon as my mother pulled out the
belt and that was my escape from the consequence of my wrongdoing, because my
mother would feel sorry for me and let me off the hook. From then on, I developed a habit of doing
things and making sure that I get away with it so that I do not have to live
with the consequence. I am all grown up now, I had to grow up and live with the
consequences and make sure that I never have to live with having to sin
habitually and recite my favourite “feel good scripture” just to ease my conscience
for a little while only to do it again. I am through with that, and I encourage
all of you with habitual sins to do the same.
It might not be such a “BIG” issue as mine, but nevertheless it must be
dealt with. Mignon Mclaughlin says: “True remorse is never regret over
consequences; it is regret over the motive.” Let this be true for you so that
you may live freely ... without the burden of guilty weighing you down heavily.
You do not have to carry that load, repent and let your heart be renewed.
In the next blog post we will look at some examples of
Godly and worldly sorrow in the bible.
God Bless you all
Love you all in staxxxxx.
