Regret & Repentance
II Corinthians 7:10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians the Apostle Paul kind of raked them over the coals so to speak. His correction of them came strong and in many areas. He accused them of turning to other leadership that led them to stop believing in the resurrection of the dead, there were divisions within the church, immorality as a man marries his father’s wife and the church approves, lawsuits among the believers, possible sexual immorality, eating food sacrificed to idols, not honoring the Lord’s Supper, and not financially supporting him. Now after this stern letter Paul tries to console them, and bring about any need for reconciliation. He begins by telling them that if he caused them sorrow by his letter, he didn’t regret it. The reason was that it made them sorry for their error and sin and it led to their repentance. Then he added that their sorrow was as God intended, so they were not harmed in any way by it. He said that because of their repentance they showed how devoted they were to the Lord and that encouraged Paul and Titus too.
No one likes punishment, at least I never did. I tend to be a people pleaser so I never wanted to cause problems although like everyone I deserved punishment too. In Hebrews 12:5-11 Paul continues to talk about discipline by saying, “Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: ‘My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.’ Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. ‘Make level paths for your feet,’ so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.”
God’s punishment is not because he hates us, but because he loves us! Sometimes it is hard to accept, but it is true. How we accept our punishment from God does matter a great deal. Because of our free will, God will let us continue in our sin if we reject his discipline. If we reject his discipline he will punish us seven times greater. Then if we continue to sin he will turn from us. This is worse than any punishment we could face from anyone. David was so concerned that the even begged God not to take his Holy Spirit from him. When King David sinned against God by killing Uriah’s and the men with him to cover up his adultery with Bathsheba, God took their baby's life. After fasting many days for the baby and the child died, David washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes and went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. In II Chronicles 21 when David sinned against the Lord he went before the Lord and admitted his sin and confessed that he had done a very foolish thing. Then the said, “I am in deep distress. Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is very great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.” David knew that the discipline of men is often without mercy and unjust in itself, but the Lord’s is never that way. David knew that even in his discipline he could trust the love of the Lord to deal with him fairly.
The Jewish nation as a whole is a different story. From the time they left Egypt they rebelled from the Lord. The Lord would punish them, but the next generation would return to idol worship or other sin. The Book of Judges goes from one discipline of the Lord to the next. Finally after many attempts to help the Northern Kingdom to repent, the Lord gave up on them and gave them over to the Assyrians to exile them throughout their kingdom. Eventually the Southern wore the patience of the Lord down, and he exiled them to Babylon. Then after 70 years he removed his punishment from them so they could return to their Promised Land, but even then they rebelled from the Lord. With this God punished them 70 times 7 or 490 years of punishment as we see in Leviticus 26:18 and Daniel 9:20-27. This punishment has not finished, because they are still in rebellion to the Lord by rejecting his Son Jesus Christ. Jews all over the world are still not letting the discipline of the Lord to do its work. The longer we resist the Lord’s discipline or resent it the harder our hearts will become towards the Lord and his discipline. Godly sorrow brought by the Lord’s discipline will bring regret for our sinfulness, but with worldly sorrow there is resentment that results in rejecting the Lord. This is what we see in Satan and the powers of darkness that results in eternity in hell. God is not asking us to enjoy his discipline, but to yield to it. He wants it’s work to change us for the better, and that is how we need to see and respond to it.
So how do we know if God is disciplining us or not? Well, the first thing we need to do is to pray about what is going on in our life. We need to ask ourself if we are living in sin and rebelling from the Lord in some area. Is there guilt for something that we refuse to seek forgiveness for? The Holy Spirit will tell us, but the trick is to have a willing spirit to really hear from the Lord. The Lord doesn’t like to play games, and we shouldn’t think we can with the Lord. Only with true repentance will we find forgiveness and reconciliation with God. Maybe the question we need to ask ourselves is, “Would we be happier to have God not care about us and not discipline us?”
Prayer: Lord, no one likes discipline, but we never want to come to the point that you would become weary of us, and no longer care about us enough to stop trying to make us more pleasing to you. Lord, we pray that you will never have to discipline us again, but if you do, like with David, we know you will do it with love and mercy. Thank you Lord.
