Godly Sorrow or Sorrow of the World

True repentance is no light matter. It is a thorough change of heart about sin, a change showing itself in godly sorrow and humiliation - in heartfelt confession before the throne of grace - in a complete breaking off from sinful habits, and an abiding hatred of all sin. Such repentance is the inseparable companion of saving faith in Christ.  J.C. Ryle

Do you have regrets in your life?  How do you begin again when you mess up and regret how you acted or spoke?  Once words leave our mouth they can't be taken back.  If you or I hurt another individual we should have regret and sorrow.

Have you ever thought about the regrets in your life and considered that if you don’t have any regrets, how would you ever grow and learn to have empathy for another person.  Every person has done things in their life that they regret or maybe I should say should regret.  By that I mean; have you ever met someone who goes through life saying hurtful things to others, making fun of others and never seems to regret any of it.  I believe that every one of us should have regrets because of the simple fact that we are sinners.  We are going to mess up.  It is a given. If we don’t have regrets in our life how can we learn to be humble.  The humbling of ourselves to another person is the most powerful experience and often the most painful.  Why?  Because we are forced to admit that we are wrong. 

So being sinners, how do we work on giving ourselves a second chance to show others we regret our behavior?  First, we need to acknowledge that we did something we regret.  Second, we also need to examine why we regret what we did.  Do I regret it because I got caught, or do I regret it because someone got hurt?  If we don’t regret hurting another person we need more self-examination.  If we don’t have godly sorrow for another human being we have hurt, then we aren’t what God calls us to be.  If our sorrow is like Judas in  Matthew 7:3-4, (“Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.”), which reflected selfish dread of the consequences of sin rather than a deep regret at the cause of the sin, then we aren’t any different than Judas.

Judas betrayed Jesus, but so did Peter.  Why is there a difference in the two?  Judas had sorrow of the world and Peter eventually had godly sorrow for what he had done.       

   

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I have many regrets about how I treat others.  If I examine myself and am honest; I will have regrets that need redemption.  Give me the strength and courage to step up and admit my failures and request forgiveness. I want to live my life expressing godly sorrow.  Godly sorrow will make me humble, help me to have compassion for others and show me the true meaning of living life as a child of God.  Remind me when I fail, that worldly sorrow produces death; godly sorrow produces life.     

Scripture: Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter. Therefore, although I wrote to you, I did not do it for the sake of him who had done the wrong, nor for the sake of him who suffered wrong, but that our care for you in the sight of God might appear to you. 2 Corinthians 7:9-12