2 Corinthians 7: 9 Now I am glad—not because it caused you grief but because you were moved to make a permanent change[a] that can happen only with the realization that your actions have gone against God—I’m glad to know you suffered no long-term loss because of what we did.
10 Now this type of deep sorrow, godly sorrow, is not so much
about regret; but it is about producing a change of mind and behavior[b] that
ultimately leads to salvation. But the other type of sorrow, worldly sorrow,
often is fleeting and only brings death.
I’ve been thinking about this post for several
days and today my Catholic upbringing came to mind. I remember going to
confession and leaving with assigned prayers designed to cover whatever sins I
told the priest I had committed. The idea was to come clean and
acknowledge my sin in order to be forgiven.
The pattern of sinning, confessing and praying
repeated itself throughout most of my life before I actually knew God and by
extension, myself.
It was a fruitless effort that made me feel bad
about myself, guilty for my many transgressions and it reinforced my negative
view of a God who existed to make me miserable. This is the danger of
institutionalizing God without knowing Him.
The other side of this is when we acknowledge
that we do know God, but we take that relationship casually. Jesus is our
friend, but God is holy and we can’t cross that line into familiarity that
removes the sacred.
Is your repentance genuine?
Contrition - sincere
penitence or remorse
Attrition – do you have a
hidden motive, as in fear of divine punishment or imperfect contrition?
Which
of these defines your attitude toward sin?
Sin is hardly used anymore in our culture.
Christians will say they made the wrong choices or had bad attitudes. We use
any word, but the one that cuts to the core: SIN.
When you sin
do you cover it up with quick prayers or apologies? But what about going
before the face of God?
Do you go
before God and cry out in contrition?
Do you spend
time on your knees praying and asking for forgiveness with true contrition
because you know God and you know you have hurt His heart?
Many of us
don’t go there. It’s a deep
place to go.
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