Fellowship In Christ                              
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                         'As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord´

                                    "Igniting soul's through the proclamation of Jesus Christ".

  

We can begin revival in our land if we will commit to daily prayer, weekly fasting, and hearts yearning for God to enter our world and transform it.  There is a vast difference between admitting, or confessing your sin, and feeling true sorrow for your sin.  In fact, in light of today's focus verse, we may have unconfessed sin our lives.

 

Focus in the Word: "And Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death."  (2 Corinthians 7:10)

 

You see, a heart that is truly seeking the Lord will feel a sense of sorrow for sin.  We can look at the children of Israel for an example.  Exodus 33:4 contains a key word, "mourn", "When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn and no one put on any ornaments."  The children of Israel were a very expressive people.  When they celebrated, they really celebrated!  When they mourned, they really mourned!  The word "mourn" in this verse speaks expressly about wailing and lamenting with great sorrow.  Why were they mourning?  Because they had sinned and God had revealed their sin to them.  We see in them a pattern for us teaching us how to respond to God when confronted with sin.  It is important that we learn from their example, as we tie these two verses together.

 

I personally can think of times that I have done wrong and I have casually asked the Lord to forgive me but there was no change of attitude in my heart, there was no sorrow, there was no lamenting, there was certainly no mourning.  In my mind I was satisfied that I had repented, but our verse today says something different.  "Godly sorrow" brings repentance, not a casual admission of wrongdoing.

 

Let us Pray: "Father, most of us can honestly say that there have been many times we have done something we knew to be wrong, casually asked forgiveness and never thought another thing of it.  Forgive us, Lord, for not approaching You with a heart of true sorrow for offending Your Most Holy Throne.  Lord, help us each to approach You sincerely and honestly with a heart determined to please You even when we miss the mark.  Teach us to mourn and teach us to have sorrow every time we bring offense to You, we want nothing more than to stand before You pure and free from any chains that might bind us to this old world.  Lord, we ask You to teach us Godly sorrow and help us to quickly recognize when we offend You.  We long to please You in all we do and say.  Purify thy heart, O' God, and help us to be a pleasing and submitted vessel of honor set apart to glorify You.  There is nothing we would rather do.  In Jesus' Name, Amen."

 

Repentance can come with responses of sorrowful emotions from the extreme wailing and mourning the children of Israel experienced, or deep regret, or sincere sadness for having offended the Lord.   However, if you're honest with yourself, there have been many times your admission of wrongdoing has been simply that, acknowledging you did wrong to ease your own conscience.  If you look at it though, this is not true repentance that reflects "Godly sorrow".

 

Take some time today and search your heart, asking the Lord to reveal to you any areas of wrongdoing to which you need to apply "Godly sorrow".  It may be that you need to ask God for a sense of sorrow for sin for which you are repenting.  We know that if we ask according to God's will, that he will give it to us, we are batting 1000 when we ask of Him something that He desires from us.  Allow yourself the privilege of experiencing true sorrow for your sins.  You will find a burden lifted that you never realized was there.  Don't back away from this opportunity to bless the Lord and to reap the benefits of living with "no regret".

 

"Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in My presence only, but now much more in My absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."  (Philippians 2:12) 

 

Love in the Lord
Paul/Hayman
http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/FellowshipInChrist
http://christianprayerministry.com
"Igniting passion in the people of God through the proclamation of truth."


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