Of Godly Sorrow and repentance

Before I even say anything I will admit that I know in part and I will come to the full knowledge of every gospel truth when I see Him face to face. For all the questions shall become answers just at the mere glance of His person. I will agree at one point with one brother and disagree with the same on another point, reason being revelation is different and it is progressive. Paul, a grace apologetic…most of his letters and writing style is in defense mode. He is defending his beliefs. We are not permitted at this point to write the bible for it is a privilege reserved to the people who walked with him and those appointed for to do so. However, I shall use my own words to explain scripture that is the reason the five-fold ministry was given as a blessing to the church by God. as you read you are led by the Spirit, I would love to believe so…but it’s a pity when our stubbornness and strong convictions blur as from the truth. In teaching there is heresy we do not deny that…if you so here your spirit convicting you of heresy openly disagree….I have no problem with that. I will make it clear that I have no intention to preach hell of entertain the gospels of devils here on this group. I desire to meet God and I also desire the same for you….having said this I would love to make the following points apparent.

1. I have lived a better life, have been wrong several times, I do bad things, and I never do those based on the fact that God is gracious…I do those things because at times I just get overwhelmed…How do I get out of such circumstances. Godly sorrow brings repentance, 2 Corinthians 7:9-10 And now I rejoice, not because you were made sorrowful, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you felt the sorrow that God had intended, and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godlysorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly sorrow brings
2. Acknowledgement of wrong is what I believe in and I do every time….and it is a good thing to do.

I wanna start off by addressing godly sorrow and repentance. Yesterday I requested that we read the parable of the prodigal son. I hope you paid attention to the parable and we won’t accuse each other for perverting the word of God. You will realise the first that the son came to his senses…and the motivation was hunger not real repentance. He did it for his belly. He just wanted to eat. The confession was based on a wrong motive. Read the scripture. And then we are told before the father heard the confession speech he ran towards the son. He had already forgiven him and the bible is clear. It is his compassion that rendered the warm disposition towards the son. The son went on and confessed but did the father commend on the confession he never did.

Now let’s talk about the worldly sorrow and godly sorrow. The young man had worldly sorrow. He realised he was dying of hunger and went back to the father. Well, we know a parable is a earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Who taught the parable? None other than Jesus. Obviously he wanted us to learn something. Secondly godly sorrow is good but this passage does not demonstrate godly sorrow. I am racing against time. I am at work I have to work so can’t get deeper. All I am saying in a nutshell is that godly sorrow is acknowledgement of wrong. All of us here should acknowledge wrong. And I will rush to point out James 5. If we see there….the scripture is elaborate…and some of the pastors in the group yesterday encouraged us to look at the word of confession. It does not merely mean speaking about sins. That scripture in James in its context is very right and good. How do I overcome sin? I have friends in this group and I confess to them my weaknesses. I tell them openly brother you see I am struggling with lust, sister you see I have a pornography addiction. See what the word says. Confess your sins one to another. I am coming to my brethren to confess my wrongs not that I am expecting forgiveness. The word then goes on to say from that verse pray for one another. It means based on the weakness that I have laid bare in the open…my sister, my brother will pray for me…and as they pray that hold of sin is broken. And I am not ignoring the verse that says and God will forgive you of the sins. People there are sins we do that will open the door for the enemy to attack us…and unless we deal with that sin the enemy has a legal right to afflict our flesh…because we sin in the flesh. So what do we mean God will forgive you. Let’s consider context….Is it like each time we hear one is sick they have committed sin…but of course in this context one was sick because they sinned. And there are those sicknesses that are brought about by our sinful deeds….and people from experience I know….if you open a door the devil will hit you bad…and there are reason why some people can commit the same sin and get away with it, and there are reasons why God will allow you to get sick….you are deliberately sinning and the devil has always been looking for a door to get you. So you have opened the door to sin. I have to be careful here lest I suffer being misquoted. It’s not like God punishes us with sickness…but you have deliberately touched fire, it will burn you. And again as far as sicknesses brought about by sin such as pornography addiction, unless you tell the truth about it…you will remain sick. What are those sicknesses…hallucinations, mental illness, even strange infections….unless you tell the truth the door will remain open….so it’s not like God is the one who has opened and closed the door. You are the one who is responsible to what is happening to you. So we cant use this scripture to say unless you confess your sins God will not heal you or forgive…

 

I will look into I John 1 next time. For now I have to work.