"It’s time for letting go All of our” if onlys”, Cause we don’t have a time machine. And even if we did, Would we really want to use it? Would we really want to go change everything? Cause we are who we and where and what we are for now. And this is the only moment We can do anything about." -Steven Curtis Chapman
So many of us have those moments that we wish we could take back. We wish we had done things differently or we just want to forget something ever happened. So we (well, I know I) push them away from our thoughts. We fight them and destroy them in our minds to whatever danger it causes to ourselves. How true this is for my life! There are so many things I wish I could go back and redo.... or choose to never do… but the thought then haunts me, Would I actually change? I can’t say for certain I would… even having the hindsight I now have.
Regret is a funny thing. It is defined by dictionary.com as a feeling of sorrow or remorse, a sense of loss. But, is regret a biblical concept? Did Jesus regret anything? As Christians should we suffer from regret? I can’t say for sure. I know that Jesus didn’t regret anything because he was perfect and so he would have nothing to feel regret over. When a Christian looks at sin that they may regret, that is wrong. As Christians we are fully forgiven of all our sins no matter how big they were. So if Christ looks at me and sees Jesus Christ because he has forgiven me, then who am I to look at myself and regret my sinful past? That’s a low view of God’s forgiveness. But at the same time it does no mean that we shouldn't be broken over our sin. We should recognize our selves as sinners and that should break us down. But only so that the Lord can pick us up and remind us that he loves and has forgiven us. We should feel sorrow over dishonoring our Lord and Savior. But that should not rule our lives because it keeps us from serving the Lord and growing in our lives. So I guess what I am trying to say is that what I have learned in life, which is not alot and there is much more to learn is, that my sins are wrong, and I should be broken over them, and run to the Lord for forgivenes. But once they are left at the foot of the cross thats where they stay. He has forgiven me.
Scripture does say much about forgiveness one of which is defining guilty. We loosely use the word as meaning a feeling when the Bible teaches that it means having committed an offense, violation, cupable. It is a legal term, we have violated God's moral law. Regret however, is a feeling, closely tied to being guilty of falling short of a standard. As we know, feelings can be a blessed thing. (Christ had emotions and we too emote in various ways.) Our feelings are the mirror as to what lies in our hearts..what we truly want. They reveal the sins that we may be ignorant of until we react in emotions. Our conscience is knit to our emotions. We can sharpen or dull our consciences and it is important that we use only Scripture to do so since it will determine our evaluation of those feelings through what is true to examine ourselves. 1 John 1:9 states that if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When we confess, we agree with God of what He already knows to be true of us. The regret or remorse over our sin HAS to be righteous though.. If it is not godly sorrow over sinning against a Holy God, then it is not true conviction (nor the following repentance and reconciliation with God). So when our consciences are sharpened and we sin it will trigger our emotions to experience what you could term regret. However, the world sees regret as being sorrow and remorse due to the consequences of sin. (Most often how it affects them and those around them as opposed to it being against God who crushed His Son for us.) Which is not godly sorrow, its immense love for us to have laid down His life for us that we would go and willfully sin against Him.) Godly sorrow leading to repentance is relational whereas worldly sorrow or regret is consequential.
Scripture does say much about forgiveness one of which is defining guilty. We loosely use the word as meaning a feeling when the Bible teaches that it means having committed an offense, violation, cupable. It is a legal term, we have violated God's moral law. Regret however, is a feeling, closely tied to being guilty of falling short of a standard. As we know, feelings can be a blessed thing. (Christ had emotions and we too emote in various ways.) Our feelings are the mirror as to what lies in our hearts..what we truly want. They reveal the sins that we may be ignorant of until we react in emotions. Our conscience is knit to our emotions. We can sharpen or dull our consciences and it is important that we use only Scripture to do so since it will determine our evaluation of those feelings through what is true to examine ourselves. 1 John 1:9 states that if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When we confess, we agree with God of what He already knows to be true of us. The regret or remorse over our sin HAS to be righteous though.. If it is not godly sorrow over sinning against a Holy God, then it is not true conviction (nor the following repentance and reconciliation with God). So when our consciences are sharpened and we sin it will trigger our emotions to experience what you could term regret. However, the world sees regret as being sorrow and remorse due to the consequences of sin. (Most often how it affects them and those around them as opposed to it being against God who crushed His Son for us.) Which is not godly sorrow, its immense love for us to have laid down His life for us that we would go and willfully sin against Him.) Godly sorrow leading to repentance is relational whereas worldly sorrow or regret is consequential.
But going back to 1 John 1:9...He forgives our sins and cleanses us from that weight of filth and lawlessness. Although we are not under the Law in the sense of our salvation because Christ came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it..we still abide by it, and all of scripture out of a love driven obedience for Him and His Word. And it is by grace alone that we are able to do so.
Recognizing our depraved state of sinfulness will humble us. And when we are in sin it will break us down in our pride until we repent. But of course, it is the Word of God that does that (Heb 4:12). Scripture says that He forgivesnot being broken over the act of sin that you committed, having wished you didn't grieve God by it. (Because we are already perfect in disposition we obviously don't lose our salvation, but we are still sinners and we still grieve the Holy Spirit with our sinful actions/thoughts. So we feel sorrow,but we rest in the knowing that God has removed from us our sins as far as the East is from the West (Ps103:12). As well as Ps 25:7; Isa. 43:25; Heb 8:12 that He will remember our sins no more. He actively removes it and doesn't hold it against us.
But we don't regret the past sins in the sense that we don't have sorrow over them any longer. We are not guilty because they are forgiven in Christ, therefore we shouldn't experience those feelings of guilt. Those feelings are to convict us. If we are revisiting old feelings of sorrow over our forgiven sins then we call God a liar when He says that they are forgiven and that His grace abounds (Rom. 5:19-21). To say that I am pleased with any of my sin in the past would be wrong as well, though. There is a healthy state of recognizing who we once were, the ways that we have sinned in order to guard ourselves against falling into old habits that tempt us to those sins. I do not delight in any sin, not of now nor of the past because it was rebelling against God. I feel bad in the sense that I am a sinner and continually commit sins, the old are the same as the new but it will always directly lead to Christ and how rich His love is for us. And so remembering sins is inevitable for us and it isn't wrong if controlled and seen through the lens of Scripture. But to dwell on old sins is when it becomes a problem in that we then are as you've more or less stated, robbing God of His glory through His propitious atonement shown through the resurrection of Christ. Be careful to say that we don't feel regret over our old sins because that can come off as if we are pleased with our sins because God used them for our good. God hates sin, and although He uses it to sanctify us and ultimately for His glory, we must be careful to remember that His goodness does not make our sin okay to commit. It then falls into where Peter asks, may we continue sinning because grace abounds? Looking at the past in the same manner can imply that we are grateful for our sin that God hates. We are grateful that our God is so Kind, Gracious, Merciful, Loving, Long-suffering.....that He takes our sin and not only cleanses us from it, but uses it for His purposes. It may also be good for us, myself included, to remember that EVERYTHING (our sin included) is Father filtered. He preserves us from an abundance of sin and temptation because in our sin nature we are FULLY capable of heinous sins. 'but who can conceive the frightful lengths to which men would go were God to remove his curbing hand? “Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood” (Rom. 3:14-15). This is the nature of every descendant of Adam.' [AW Pink] Which only reminds me that we truly are no better than anyone else...if it weren't for God's grace we would be the same and even worse considering how much sin of unbelievers he refrains as well.
Love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, goodness, kindness, gentleness and self control are both active and cultivated fruits. We can actively pursue them as well they are grown by the Holy Spirit. Scripture says we are to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12-13) There is a responsibility of man's to pursue godliness. (be holy as I am Holy) We are to work out our salvation, not in the sense that we can add to Christ's atonement, but that we work out our sanctification and it is God who does so through us. That wonderful cohesion of God and man's responsibility together. God works through us! However, certain fruits are not ones that we can cultivate and so they are fully given by Gods grace. Because the fruits are evidences of faith we can cultivate them by ultimately growing in knowledge of our Truine God through meditation on His Word and reliance on the Holy Spirit through prayer which in turn increases our faith, hope and love. So when you say that the truth of the Gospel will take hold of our hearts I couldn't have said it better myself. Searching to create outward acts of the fruits would definitely be Pharisaical.
I struggled with that for a long time. The past two years to be exact. I didn’t understand his forgiveness. When it means that Christ has wiped my slate completely clean, that means that I must do the same. I can’t regret, because he has forgiven it. How amazing a Savior do we have who will forgive all of our sins, so that we no longer have to suffer the punishment for them!
I know I struggled with punishing myself for my past sins. Now I know I am writing to people who may not even know me or may know me and have no idea what in the world I am talking about. Well almost three years ago I was involved with a young man. We had a pretty serious relationship and with that came sin. After the break up I couldn’t stand the sight of myself. Looking at myself brought back painful memories, as well as judgments. After the way I was treated through that relationship I started to believe the message that I was trash, that I was nothing and not worthy to be loved by anything. I saw my sin staring me in the face every time I looked in the mirror. As a "good Christian girl" I was disgusted with myself. I hated to look at pictures of myself and I punished myself severely; I even gained weight and had convinced myself I was one of the ugliest persons on earth and no one could have changed my mind about that. Now some of you are wondering what in the world does this have to do with being in Africa... well I was chasing joy in life, I missed it. The pain of everything and my punishment of myself kept any joy from my life. My family saw that and tried to help me. I was a happy person, no doubt about it, but there is a difference between being a happy person and a person who is experiencing true joy.
Over the past three years the Lord has slowly been cracking through, but here in this place. Here as I sit writing this blog in the kitchen of the Muphamuzi Baby Home, in Pretoria South Africa, I can say the Lord has given me true joy. He has blessed me with a joy that cannot be described with words at all. I can’t explain even how it happened. The more I poured myself into loving these babies and serving him and those around me it’s like something switched in my head and the Lord switched it. The Bible says that there is no true joy or unity apart from Him. He is the only one who can give joy because he is joy, and that is the wondrous truth of the gospel.
Sometimes I read the truth of what a Christian should be, for example, the fruits of the spirit: to posses love joy patience kindness gentleness self control, etc. and I want to look at it and say ok... I am going to work on love this week or joy; but when the truth of the gospel takes a hold of you, you look at that verse and you don’t say ok I am going to do this, because we can’t. As a sinner I cannot keep the fruits of the Spirit on my own. That would be following the law. And as the Bible says we cannot follow the law. So the gospel speaks to our hearts and says you can’t... but I can. I, Yaweh, can help you do those things. How grateful am I for the wonderful gospel: God sent his son to die for us so that I can have Joy, Peace, Gentleness and Self Control!
So, would I go back... and change? No... This moment, what is happening in my life now, wouldn’t be happening if I had not experienced what I did three years ago. And so will I waste my time with “what if’s” or “if only’s”. No, I am living to honor and serve my Lord and Savior now, because that’s where my life is. "I have the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart..." Praise the Lord! I don’t deserve your love. Thank you.
