Repentance and Godly Sorrow

"Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.  See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done..."

-- 2 Corinthians 7:10-11

The message this week was about repentance.  My hope is that as you listened to the message, the Holy Spirit worked in your heart to reveal areas in your life that you need to further turn over to God's control.  And as I was reading my regular bible reading this morning, I came across a Scripture that I believe that is a very important follow-up to what we talked about Sunday.

We must understand that the conviction of the Holy Spirit is not a guilt trip about all that you have done in your past.  We have to be able to discern the difference between God's voice of conviction and discipline and Satan's accusing voice of condemnation.  

"Godly sorrow brings repentance..."  God's voice always leads us forward, away from sin toward life and salvation.  "...but wordly sorrow brings death"  The accusing voice of Satan and our own natural feelings of shame and guilt take us backward to regret, shame, and inconsolable grief.  If you become aware of your sin, and it makes you want to give up rather than repent, you are not hearing God's voice.

Paul gives us a picture here of what godly sorrow looks like and produces in us.  "earnestness..." We lose our pretense; our response to God is honest.  "...eagerness to clear yourselves..."  Godly sorrow makes us eager to be reconciled to God and cleansed from sin; it motivates us to action, not to despair.  "...indignation..."  We receive godly anger over the effects of sin and the injustice of sin.  We see sin as it is and it disgusts us.  We cease to wink at or joke about sin, because we recognize its seriousness.  "...alarm..."  We are met with the urgency of repentance; we are not casual about it.  We realize that change needs to take place at once.  "...longing..."  We long for righteousness and to be made clean; we recognize the opportunity that we are missing by our sin and greatly desire to take hold of it.  "...concern..."  God opens up our hearts in affection for him and love for people.  "...readiness to see justice done..."  We are willing to do what it takes to set things right.  We see the injustice of our sin and are ready to change our thoughts and actions.

Godly sorrow and worldly sorrow feel the same in our gut, but they are very different.  One leads to life, the other to death.  May this passage come to mind as you try to discern between the two in your life.