My Mistakes (and what to do about them)
One of the biggest barriers to people surrendering to the Gospel of Jesus Christ is what to do about their past mistakes. Sin is a terrible taskmaster and the evil one is very adept at holding guilt and the “wages of sin” over our human heads.
While the beauty of the Gospel is that we are immediately forgiven for all the wrongs we have ever done and WILL do by the eternal grace and mercy of our Savior…we still quickly realize that throughout this life we will reap based on what we sowed. God forgives us for being sinners, but we continue to pay the price for our sins. Some of those sins come with bigger price tags than others.
I have been back in faith for almost two years now and it has been an amazing time of growth and grace. Yet, most days there comes something from the past that I still have to consider or make restitution for. It has been very clear to me in scripture that forgiveness isn’t just about saying “I’m sorry” and moving on like my sins or mistakes didn’t happen. Jesus forgave the sins of people when He walked this earth but when He forgave people, He normally commanded, “Go and sin no more”. He obviously believed they had choices to make for the rest of their lives that would affect them spiritually.
We have always had “free will” to decide between right and wrong when confronted with the options. When we open our lives to the salvation that comes from being born again by the call of the Holy Spirit, we have MORE than our own free will to enable us to change. HE gives us the power to change when we submit our wills to His. Jesus Himself had that decision and option when facing the crucifixion He knew He was born to endure…yet, fortunately for us, He prayed to His Father, “your will, not mine, be done”.
When we analyze the confession of sin in the Biblical process of salvation, it seems there is a diminishing emphasis by today’s “Church” regarding “repentance” and “reconciliation”. It is for this reason that many new converts to the faith don’t grow or stay in the faith. Today’s cheapened “American Gospel” in many circles is focused on unstable promises of “feeling better”, making a “new start”, and being accepted “as we are”. In every case of conversion I have read in the New Testament, there was a definite change of direction and lifestyle involved in the conversion to Christianity. Today I think we Americans take “just as I am” to a whole different level of understanding. It SHOULD be that Christ takes me “just as I am” in order to make me “just what I should be”. The power of the Gospel is in the change it brings to our lives…some immediate and some by the process of sanctification the Holy Spirit has promised to perform in obedient hearts and minds.
What makes a person change and how do you know they have changed? I believe that the proof of a changed heart is seen in time by changed behaviors and attitudes. People who think they can “enter into the Kingdom of God” without determining to change their ways will find themselves sorely disappointed at the promised “day of judgment” when Christ will say to many self-professed believers, “Depart from me, I never knew you” (Matthew 7:23).
Some of the harshest results of sin today in our society can be seen in the liberality of abortions on demand, the high divorce levels that have obliterated the concept of families, and the attempts of so many to exchange their God-given genders for all manner of contrived declarations of false self-identification. How have things gotten so dark in such a short generation or two when it comes to human sexuality? If you take a Biblical look at these things, you see that this has been the normal process of pagan humanist empires for thousands of years. The cycle of paganism and humanism has continually gone through these cancellations of God’s natural order of things until the wages of those sins have caused the death of these very empires, cultures, or societies. We now see ourselves quickly accelerating through another shortening cycle of a culture without God’s Word and truth. The wages of sin have never been more clear. And we wonder why we see such a pandemic of STDs, AIDS, addictions, and mental disorders? Just open your eyes.
Fortunately, Christ will always be the risen Lord, sitting on the Father’s right hand making intercession for you and me because He has been here in the flesh and knows what we are dealing with. His word is still with us, and when it is written in our hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are changed or in the process of changing from the point of spiritual regeneration (John 15:6-8). He does not force this regeneration upon us, but He does confront us with the option from time to time in our lives and waits for us to receive Him spiritually so that we may change in all ways to become more like him versus more like “ourselves”. We begin to learn that our true and best self is when we seek to be like Christ. We then start becoming who we were created to be.
Ok, but what follows that spiritual rebirth that gives us the faith to believe and live differently? If we believe in and follow Jesus, we will not only confess our sins, but we will REPENT from our sin…which means to “quit doing that”. We need a change of direction. One definition of insanity is when a person continues doing the same things over and over but expecting different results. Faith is not insanity. When we truly turn our lives over to Christ, we are new creatures. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are no longer prisoners to our own earthly natures. Sure, we still feel the tug of the flesh in multiple ways every day, but we are now plugged into the power of God to overcome our fleshly desires, with those being replaced by spiritual desires. We would rather please God than please ourselves or others. When God is number one in our lives, we have almost no regard for pleasing other people or even “fitting in”. We are content to be loved by God and those of His Body…called the Church…to move forward in love, unity, and productivity. When we stop focusing on God and His Church, we almost immediately fall back into our old fleshly ways and darkened minds. I have been there, and it is not a pretty or desirable state of being.
So, what do we do about the results of our previous sins? There are obviously some things we can never change. We cannot bring back to life someone we have murdered. A woman cannot bring back an aborted baby. We cannot change the facts or results of our previous unholy relations that brought about children out of wedlock or broken marriages. Yet I would suggest we are instructed to change and repair what we can. The hardest part of repentance is paying back people that we owed or stole money from in the past. It’s hard to restart relations with our kids or other family members with who we fought most of our/their lives. It’s hard to go back and say “I’m sorry” and ask forgiveness from people we despised or even hated for years or decades past. In most cases, those conflicts were a two-way street, and we may feel THEY have as much responsibility to apologize to us, but as is always the case, we are not responsible for them or their actions. We are responsible for OURS…and none of us are perfect.
I still have a lot of work to do in this area. God has spoken and dealt with me regarding many people and situations of my past during these past two years of renewed spiritual awareness. I have apologized to a number of people for my selfish, quarrelous behaviors of the past decades, and I still have a big list of others to make apologies and restitution to…hopefully before God calls me home. But I can honestly say I look forward to those conversations and amended wrongs over time in hopes that healing can take place in all of our lives and that I will become a true witness to God’s power and might in this life to show the difference God can make when we yield to Him and His instruction. If I cannot do this step by step, I have no business trying to be in Christian ministry or singing Gospel music. Words and songs come easy, but actions of conciliation and contriteness…not so much.
In summary, I would have to say that much of the church’s weakness in this humanistic, pagan age is based on the lack of obedience to the Biblical principles of marriage and sexuality. As this interesting study on “The Religious Marriage Paradox” states, there is less and less differential between Christian and non-Christian behavior when it comes to sex and marriage. Today, more than 70% of marriages are preceded by cohabitation, and 50% of women from faiths prohibiting this are doing the same. There is only a 15-20% difference in the data. Thus it is easy to see in and outside the church today the results of this disobedience to God’s ways. Broken homes, broken children, broken lives everywhere both in and out of the church. So, what is the answer!?
Many of you know this scripture and might find it trite to repeat, but I still think it IS the answer.
“If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).
Once we are spiritually renewed, we can begin the humbling yet magnificent process of change and healing. No matter what atrocious things we have done, how many we have harmed or damaged, no matter how little we think of ourselves as failures or futile souls…we can start that change and healing TODAY! You must start…and never stop. You will probably still fail or stumble from time to time, but God’s spirit will restore and build you up day by day to where you no longer recognize the person you see in the mirror…and even those who may despise you now may find themselves challenged by the overcomer you have become. That will NOT be a mistake…and your life will have renewed purpose.