Silas
Beloved of All
Your honest and humble sharing is received with gratitude, and it is a blessing to pray with you. To walk with the Lord and then to turn away for many years, and then to be brought back to see it clearly, brings a very real sense of embarrassment and sorrow. That feeling you describe is something Scripture speaks about openly.
The prophet Jeremiah was given a message from the Lord about backsliding. The Lord spoke of His people turning away and giving their hearts to other things, and He called them to return. He said that He is merciful and will not keep His anger forever toward those who return to Him. He does not desire a half hearted relationship, He desires a whole heart. The lesson there is also that when we have seen the consequences of turning away, we are all the more responsible to come back fully. Your recognition after more than forty years of foolish choices is not something to hide. It is the very place where God meets a person who is ready to return.
Scripture also describes what that awakening feels like. It says we lie down in our shame and confusion covers us, for we have sinned against the Lord and have not obeyed His voice from our youth onward. It says shame devours so much of what was labored for. That weight you feel, that sense that simply saying you are alive by the grace of God does not seem like enough words, is understandable. Yet that simple truth is actually the deepest truth. You are not merely lucky to be alive. The fact that God preserved you through those years, even while you were far from Him, is pure grace. And the grace that kept you alive is the same grace that now provides complete forgiveness through Jesus Christ.
Jesus endured the cross and despised its shame for the joy of providing a righteous basis for your forgiveness. He took your sin and its penalty so that God can forgive you righteously and completely. When God forgives, He blots out the past. He does not keep bringing it up. To be justified means it is as though you never did it. It is a shame even to keep rehearsing the secret things that were done in that old life, and it is not loving to plant those images again in your own mind or in others. Receive His forgiveness as total and complete, and do not keep reminding Him of what He has chosen to forget.
There is a difference between a sorrow that leads to death and a sorrow that leads to repentance. Worldly sorrow is sorry about consequences. Godly sorrow produces a change. The example of Esau is given to show this. He wept bitterly, but not because he repented of his sin. He wept because he lost the blessing. His tears were about the loss, not about turning to God. True repentance is different. It is a change of heart and direction that then shows itself in a changed life. Peter denied the Lord three times, and when he remembered the Lord's words he wept, but his sorrow led him to return, and the Lord restored him and used him greatly. That is the pattern for you. If your sorrow is leading you to turn away from the old path and to walk again with Jesus, that is godly sorrow working repentance that you will not regret. The fruit of that repentance will be seen over time as you bring forth actions that demonstrate the change God has worked in you.
You are not beyond renewal. God is gracious, merciful, long suffering and patient. He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. Your greatest need, like every person's greatest need, is the forgiveness of sins, and that has been purchased for you by Jesus dying in your place. As David wrote, how happy is the person whose transgression is forgiven. That happiness and that inheritance as a child of God is yours now through faith in Christ.
So be encouraged. Do not stay lying down in shame. Lift up your head to the mercy of God who says, return and I will receive you. Thank Him that His grace kept you, and thank Him that His grace now cleanses you completely.
Joining you in prayer, asking our Father in Jesus' name that His will be done in your life and in the lives of your family members, loved ones, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and even those who have been against you, and all others the Lord brings to your mind. We pray that each one would come to know the forgiveness that is only through Jesus Christ. We also pray as you asked for those who serve as law enforcement, for paramedics and EMTs who run toward crisis to help others, and for those who are homeless and vulnerable on the streets. May the Lord protect, provide for, and draw each one to Himself, and may His will be done in all of these lives. Amen.
The prophet Jeremiah was given a message from the Lord about backsliding. The Lord spoke of His people turning away and giving their hearts to other things, and He called them to return. He said that He is merciful and will not keep His anger forever toward those who return to Him. He does not desire a half hearted relationship, He desires a whole heart. The lesson there is also that when we have seen the consequences of turning away, we are all the more responsible to come back fully. Your recognition after more than forty years of foolish choices is not something to hide. It is the very place where God meets a person who is ready to return.
Scripture also describes what that awakening feels like. It says we lie down in our shame and confusion covers us, for we have sinned against the Lord and have not obeyed His voice from our youth onward. It says shame devours so much of what was labored for. That weight you feel, that sense that simply saying you are alive by the grace of God does not seem like enough words, is understandable. Yet that simple truth is actually the deepest truth. You are not merely lucky to be alive. The fact that God preserved you through those years, even while you were far from Him, is pure grace. And the grace that kept you alive is the same grace that now provides complete forgiveness through Jesus Christ.
Jesus endured the cross and despised its shame for the joy of providing a righteous basis for your forgiveness. He took your sin and its penalty so that God can forgive you righteously and completely. When God forgives, He blots out the past. He does not keep bringing it up. To be justified means it is as though you never did it. It is a shame even to keep rehearsing the secret things that were done in that old life, and it is not loving to plant those images again in your own mind or in others. Receive His forgiveness as total and complete, and do not keep reminding Him of what He has chosen to forget.
There is a difference between a sorrow that leads to death and a sorrow that leads to repentance. Worldly sorrow is sorry about consequences. Godly sorrow produces a change. The example of Esau is given to show this. He wept bitterly, but not because he repented of his sin. He wept because he lost the blessing. His tears were about the loss, not about turning to God. True repentance is different. It is a change of heart and direction that then shows itself in a changed life. Peter denied the Lord three times, and when he remembered the Lord's words he wept, but his sorrow led him to return, and the Lord restored him and used him greatly. That is the pattern for you. If your sorrow is leading you to turn away from the old path and to walk again with Jesus, that is godly sorrow working repentance that you will not regret. The fruit of that repentance will be seen over time as you bring forth actions that demonstrate the change God has worked in you.
You are not beyond renewal. God is gracious, merciful, long suffering and patient. He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. Your greatest need, like every person's greatest need, is the forgiveness of sins, and that has been purchased for you by Jesus dying in your place. As David wrote, how happy is the person whose transgression is forgiven. That happiness and that inheritance as a child of God is yours now through faith in Christ.
So be encouraged. Do not stay lying down in shame. Lift up your head to the mercy of God who says, return and I will receive you. Thank Him that His grace kept you, and thank Him that His grace now cleanses you completely.
Joining you in prayer, asking our Father in Jesus' name that His will be done in your life and in the lives of your family members, loved ones, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and even those who have been against you, and all others the Lord brings to your mind. We pray that each one would come to know the forgiveness that is only through Jesus Christ. We also pray as you asked for those who serve as law enforcement, for paramedics and EMTs who run toward crisis to help others, and for those who are homeless and vulnerable on the streets. May the Lord protect, provide for, and draw each one to Himself, and may His will be done in all of these lives. Amen.
