An arrow to the heart, that is sorrow. A scrunched up face, shoulders lifting and falling with shortness of breath as tears stream past the chin, this is godly sorrow for wrongdoing, in the sight of the Lord.
Remorse, how bittersweet you are to my soul. Blessed repentance, how you lead me to the feet of my Saviour. Mercy, how kind? Can it be that you forgive me, wash away my sin, and remember it against me no more?
We cannot have godly sorrow without God. You know that deep down and dirty feeling you get sometimes dear reader, that you are bad, very bad indeed - that what you think and want to do, are precisely what you ought not do, but you do it anyway. And anyway, you do it again, and again, and again, and...
Sin is cement to the soul. Imagine driving about town, getting your business and errands done, and while in rush hour traffic, you slow down to stop at a red light. Of a sudden, you hear a crashing sound. The cement truck next to your car has been slammed into by a transport truck, and the cracked barrel holding the churned cement, gives vent to the substance, and it dumps, heaping on top of your car. Your windows are open, the cement pours in, and it happens so quickly, and fills the car so rapidly, that you haven't got time to escape the heavy mixture, and free yourself from the deadly mess. Sin, as I said above, is cement to the soul.
The more a person sins, the heavier the weight they carry with them, and the harder it is to escape its deadly cumbersomeness. Cement like, a person gets hardened to their own wickedness, moving further and further away from God's will, God's way, and God's commands. Sin repeated, solidifies the heart, encasing it to the point of impenetrability. Sorrow, godly sorrow, for disobedience to God's will, can and does, break the heart of stone:
Ezekiel 36:26
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
God ignored is risky business. Sin isn't happenstance, something that happens to you, it is a choice added to other choices, and sinful living can, and often does, become a way of life. And yet! We can choose not to sin, we can choose to obey God's Word, and repent, sinning no more. This is the beauty of freedom of will, dear reader. We can decide to have a tender heart toward our Maker, or harden it against his wisdom and will for us. How exciting for God's creatures, made in his image, to have freedom of choice.
I have lately met with the uninformed that have sorrow in their heart for sin committed, but they have not the words to label their unlawful deeds. It behooves Christians to speak biblical truth to the would-be repentant, so that they know the wrongs they have committed, and with remorse, and sorrowful godly pleading, can ask God to forgive them of grievous and heinous sin.
Romans 10:17
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
If faith comes by hearing, and by hearing the word of God, so, dear one, does remorse, repentance, and a deeply felt need to be forgiven by God. If a person does not know that they have sinned against God Almighty, or they sense they have sinned in a vague, and yet secularly acceptable way, then how can they come clean before God?
Christian: You have been given a ministry of reconciliation. You must speak God's Word in love, and faithfully, to those he has put in your life, his little wayward lambs, that need the Good Shepherd to lead them to safe and green, eternal pastures!
While you walk the earth Christian, your work must be to love people to the Lord, and you can do this by:
1. Reading the Word of God
2. Praying
3. Speaking the Word of God to those that long to know him
4. Living a godly life
5. Publicly declaring Christ as your Saviour: this opens the door to discussion
6. Pleading for the salvation of souls
7. Speaking truth about sin, forgiveness, and salvation
If you are saved, truly saved, dear one, you know that marvellous feeling of affinity with Christ, and with his people. If you are saved, truly saved, you, dear one, want this blessing, this perfect gift from above, for everyone you have ever known, everyone you interact with, everyone you will ever meet. You, like God, will want none, to be lost...
If you are redeemed, you will speak life to souls that need to be set free, in Christ, the cement smasher!
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