I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have been sorry in my life. As I look back on all the mistakes I have made and the consequences I have suffered a clear pattern has developed.
Most of the time when I have been sorry it has been for the wrong reason. I was sorry that I had been caught saying or doing the wrong thing and I knew that there was a price to be paid.
My sorrow was that I was not going to get to do what I wanted and it was nothing more than a form of self pity disguised as real quilt. I was sorry because of the personal embarrassment factor and how people would think negatively of me as a person.
I also say I am sorry many times just to end an unpleasant conversation so that I do not have to deal with my own personal responsibility. It can be a quick fix but never a permanent solution.
Sometimes I went a step further and really felt sorry for the damage I had done to other people. Because of my actions they had to suffer and no one should ever feel good about that.
I will never forget the first time I really understood II Corinthians 7: 9, “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.”
God is not very impressed with our prayers that merely tell him what He already knows about our mistakes. What He is looking for is a genuine spiritual grief at what we have done because we have believed a lie by not trusting Him.
Sorrow is never real until we change what we believed in our minds to what God has already said in His word. There really is a change of mind that always produces a change of direction. Sorry, anything less is a disgrace to grace.
Why is it important to be sorry for the right reason?
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