We need to feel sorrow over sin, but it's purpose is to lead us to God in repentantance so that we can restore our relationship with Him.
The question that is raised then is this what about those who feel sorrow, and never run to God? Even as Christians, if we cannot move from the sorrow of guilt to joy in God, is that joy God given? The answer seems to be no. again, not because of who I am, but because of who GOD is. When we turn around, and we see God in His power, mercy, and grace, we can stand in assurance that He is both powerful enough and faithful enough to forgive those who turn to Him.
To repent is not to simply feel sorry for something, but to truely change directions. When I look at my heart truthfully, I begin to realize how often I sin, and how truely wicked my flesh is! If the resulting sorrow is from God, it will cause me to repent and run to God. It seems that there is a God-given type of sorrow that both leads to repentance, and leaves no regrets. Let us hate our sins running from them to the joy of fellowship with Christ, and weep for the suffering. As Piper notes at the end of His book, Paul writes, “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). It is this joy and grace that allows a sinner to bear with joy the pain and suffering of not only my own life, but also the tears of those God places before their path to love. The sinner can confess their sin with confidence, because “…there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”(Romans 8:1). The only possible way this can be accomplished is to have the inward joy of a sinner who meditates the glory of being redeemed by the blood of Christ. We weep for the pain we feel because we will not give up our pride. We should weep for these people, but instead we only weep for wont of our sins.
We should care that there are people dying without Christ, we should care that there are children who are starving, we should care that there are families being decimated by aids, we should care that our church members are lonely and need us… and on and on it goes. Instead, we harbor are secret sins (including bitterness and bad attitudes), and harden ourselves against loving others. We can have the burden lifted, and enjoy the joy that comes with it. We, who know Christ, have the awesome ability to confess our sins, and have them completely forgiven! God will not hold ANY confessed sins against us because of Christ. These thoughts are intimately related to each other, and they have caused me to ponder just how backward our sinful flesh is. We instead seek only to relieve our own pain. We are unwilling to care and feel the pain of those around us. In chapter five, Piper writes that the “darkness of our souls is owing in part to the fact that we have drifted into patters of life that are not blatantly sinful but are constricted and uncaring.” In other words, we often feel miserable because we are too self-absorbed. We would rather sit in our misery and weep in self-pity. But far too often we do not want to go there. Real healing, and therefore real joy, is found in confessing our sins to God and to our brothers (James 5:16).
When we hold onto our sin, we waste away we suffer and groan all day long. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.” “Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. In chapter 4, he makes the point that our unconfessed sin “clogs our joy”. Just finishing John Pipers book When the Darkness Will Not Life, I was struck by how backward we are in our misery. He then read the Ser mon on the Mount, and sat down. So, one day, in the mid dle of a meet ing, he simp ly an nounced, “Bro ther Per ronet will now speak.” Think ing quick ly, Per ronet stood before the large crowd and de clared, “I will now de liver the greatest ser mon ever preached on earth” (you can imag ine he got everyone’s atten tion). But John Wes ley was not one to take “no” for an an swer. Any time John Wes ley was present, Per ronet felt Wesley should do the preach ing. John Wes ley was always try ing to get him to preach, but Per ronet, though capa ble, was somewhat in awe of Wes ley, and always de ferred to him. For a time, Per ronet was a co-worker of John and Charles Wes ley. Perronet, son of an Ang lican minis ter, de scended from French Hu gue nots who fled the conti nent to escape re li gious per se cution. I don't have the time to post very much these days, but came across this story on the cyberhymnalwebsite (Good story!)
0 kommentar(er)
