Regrets are most often the result of sin in
our life, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
(Rom.3:23). Being sorry for sin is something we all experience at different
points in our lives. When we are truly sorry about the bad things that have
affected our relationship with God, or hurt someone, we are on the right path
towards restoring that relationship. We become aware of what we’ve done wrong,
we can see it clearly, in the light of God’s word, we hate what we did wrong
and we don’t want to do it again.
Firstly, there is what we call the godly grief which leads to repentance
and acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice that paid it all for you, 2 Corinthians 7:10 “For godly
grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas
worldly grief produces death.” This is what I would call the first true
regret. When someone comes to know Jesus, the Spirit of the Lord opens his eyes
and he sees his faults, he regrets his way of living and asks Jesus for
forgiveness. As followers of Jesus in the new life that He gives us, we are
doing our best to live our lives to his honor, putting everything at His feet
to sanctify us so that we can be light and reflect His goodness in this
wretched world.
There is also the regret for our sins while we are
children of God. What happens when we,
as Christians fail, mess up, commit sin? Romans 3:10 says, “There is no one
righteous, not even one.” Peter was one who faced a deep and profound, life-changing
regret because he had denied His Lord three times. Many times I have thought
what a deep grief, what a desperate cry, what tears of fire he had shed. But
Jesus who had already prayed for him, that his faith would not fail (Luke,
22:32), restored Peter with love and forgiveness. Peter’s regret was true and
genuine and it hurt until the bottom of his soul. The second part of the verse
says “and when you have returned, strengthen your brethren” and
this is what he did. He needed a solid foundation to become an encourager for
his brothers. And this foundation could only be built on the ground of a broken
heart.
God looks at our heart and He is
most interested at why we do what we do.
1 Samuel, 16.7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not
consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does
not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward
appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Proverbs, 16.2 - All people’s ways
seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the Lord.
Mathew 6:1 - Be careful not to
practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you
do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
Phil. 2:3 Do nothing out of
selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above
yourselves.
1 Tim. 1:5 - The goal of this command
is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a
sincere faith.
But let’s take a moment and question our regret. Why do we
regret when we do something wrong? Why do we feel sorry? A mind filled with his
word and a conscience inhabited by His Spirit will let us know when we have
done something unacceptable in the eyes of the Lord. Sometimes we become aware
of our failure when we read a verse or a story from the Scriptures, or when we
hear a sermon, or a song, when a fellow Christian signals this to us or when we
are confronted with the consequences of our sins. Yes, it hurts. It isn’t easy
to admit that we, sons and daughters of the Almighty, saved by His blood and
empowered by His Spirit can still sin. In one of his sermons, Dr. David
Jeremiah put it like this: Our salvation has got three tenses: past, present
and future. I have been saved from the penalty of sin, I am being saved from
the power of sin and we will be saved from the presence of sin when God decides
to put an end to this world.
So, it can happen that you do, think or say something that
makes you very sad, because you realize it’s a sin. And you regret it. Truly.
But why? What’s the deepest root of your motivation? Is it because this makes
you feel you actually don’t live perfectly and it creates a dissonance between
what you are and what you let others see? Is it because you disappointed
yourself, who thought YOU were to be praised for your faith and your way of
living? Do you ask yourself: How could I do this? Is the motive of your regret
YOU? Or is it because you have made the
Holy Spirit sad and sorrowful? Is it because of you or because of God? Let us
be willing to observe the deepest root of our own regrets over sin. We as
Christians may stumble and fall sometimes because we are still human; we still
live in this world. Some may continue to sin for years, deceiving themselves and
deceiving others, carrying a burden that can be lifted up by our good Savior.
We lie to ourselves and cover our sins with a shallow attitude of being sorry.
Sometimes, we wake up in the middle of the night, overwhelmed by sadness and
deep regret, we confess to the Lord, we might even talk to someone we trust to
relieve our conscience and this helps and it’s what we need to do. But we have
to press on because deep down we feel that we’ve lost something that we long
after.
The good news is that there is hope, and from all the people
in this world, we are to be the biggest carriers of hope. There is a good news,
that Jesus has the power to restore now and forever and just as I mentioned
before, we are being saved from the power of sin, not because of us, but
because of his mercy. The
Bible tells us in 1 John 1:9 that “if we confess our sins he is faithful and
just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So let us
pray with sincerity. Oh, Lord, I confess that I have sinned against your
holiness and your glory. I have lied to myself, deceived others, pretended that
everything was right, but deep down I knew that your Spirit was sad within me.
I regretted my sin, I confessed it, and I loathed it. But it was still I that I
wanted to satisfy and rehabilitate. Because I was frustrated about the thing
that I wasn’t perfect; that my image wasn’t in fact the one I wanted to show
others and boast myself in – that of a good Christian. Oh, Lord, forgive me for
wanting my glory and my own relief whereas the reason for my regret should have
been that I have grieved you. Oh, Lord, restore our relationship because of
Jesus’ sacrifice. Make us best friends again so that you may shine and show to
the enemy that you’re Master of my inner motivations. Just as I have
surrendered my all being to you, I now surrender my deepest affections and
reasons to live and even the reasons of my regrets over sin. Now I am able to
understand (since I have experienced) that I cannot have a righteousness of my
own. I can’t be righteous because of my merits, as long as it is I that I want
to show. I am dependent upon you to live, because my life has a meaning only
when it’s fully pervaded by You.
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