We’ve all regretted or have felt remorse in our lives at one time or another. Having regret is feeling bad about something and giving a reason to throw pity parties for ourselves. Feeling bad about the past focuses on personal losses which lack the power to change, and can be overwhelming, making us miserable.
Choosing repentance is a decision to change and seek forgiveness from God and a chance to begin to forgive ourselves. Repentance can give a chance to reconcile with those hurt by sin. It doesn’t deny the fact that people have hurt us, but gives us a chance to heal. Which can lead to salvation and freedom from regret.
We have to consider whether we are sorry about the consequences of our actions or broken over the sin of doing it.
We need to ask ourselves if we are ready to change our hearts or if we are feeling sorry for ourselves. Are we really to take responsibility for our actions?
Regent sometimes masquerades as repentance, because both carry similar initial postures, but confusing the two can be devastating.
We can mix up regret and repentance easily because they both begin in the same spot -with pain,
If we look at Peter and Judas in the Bible we can compare the two. Twoo mean. Two failures. One leads to transformation and fresh faith and the other leads to despair and death.
When Peter disowned Jesus even after declaring himself incapable of denying Jesus, his willful heart choices caused regret (Luke 22:33:57). We can see a similar regret with Judas, who realized he betrayed innocent blood and drought to rectify it with his actions, there was one difference, it was whether or not they believe they could be forgiven.
Peter wept bitterly at his betrayal, he was deeply grieved over his sin (Like 22:62). And yet by God‘s grace, the Holy Spirit turned him tow hope (John 21:15-19). His surrender was so encompassing that he was able to believe his mistake was not fatal, but redeemable. In contrast, when Judas cast down the 30 pieces of silver and was met with indifference, he had no hope that he could be forgiven and then committed an act of final despair (Matthew 27:3).
Both Peter and Judas essentially asked the same question, “How could God possibly forgive me for my sin against Jesus?
Regret so easily masquerades as repentance.
When we choose to act misaligned with the Bible, it usually comes with embarrassment or self-condemnation. The pain often puts us on the path to shame, and that shame becomes either an end or a means to an end.
Grief over sin can never be a destination but it’s a tunnel through a mountain. We should not stay there, but give our guilt to Jesus because he asks for it and promises to deal with it once and forever. (John 3:17, Hebrews 12:2).
Peter’s response after succumbing to sin was brokenness and humility. Judas response was embarrassment at his weakness, as well as not thinking God would forgive him.
Repentance says, “I want to stand on Jesus’s record of righteousness and not my own.” It trusts that our failures, no matter the extent, are not fatal and that the only failure is not surrendering our fears, guilt, shame, sorrow, and sin to the love and goodness of Jesus.
We are human beings, God expects us to sin. Our proper response to the knowledge He already has is to shallow our pride and remind ourselves that we aren’t Him. Only He is God, we are all broken but deeply loved by Him.
Repentance doesn’t ultimately fix us, it’s simply how broken people, with broken lives, inhabit a broken world until Jesus comes to take us home. All the while experiencing substantial healing and transformation from God who longs to be in a relationship with us. And there’s not a thing to regret about that.
From Pity to Praise 