REFUSE to REGRET

No matter what you may have done, the pardon of God is already done. But will you accept it?  And with godly sorrow (repentance), one must refuse to regret. You see, our petition for pardon is granted because of the cross of Jesus Christ, which leads to a change of mind and transformation of life. But there remains one condition--you must refuse to regret and believe that you are truly pardoned in your request. Personally, I struggled greatly with getting over what I had done in my past and every time I revisited that tragedy with worldly sorrow in my mind, it was as if I did not trust that God’s sacrifice on the cross was enough to cover all my faults, failures, and flaws. And when we have this prideful attitude, we are placing our acts, big or small, above what Jesus did on behalf of us all.Consider this journal entry of mine from when I was in prison about accepting our ugly past and moving forward with godly sorrow.  It is the purest essence of accepting the pardon of God in our lives. It is about refusing to regret.According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, regret means to “sorrow beyond one’s power to remedy; to mourn the loss or death of.” But this is worldly sorrow. When we “regret” something we did or an event that happened, we tend to dwell on the shoulda, coulda, or woulda’s of life. I’ve said it a million times, “Man, I regret that ever happened,” but instead of doing a 180° in my mind about that tragic regret, I would sorrow over it repetitively. In Second Corinthians, it says that worldly sorrow produces death. Understand death here does not mean physical, but it is when emotional, spiritual, or relational sorrow causes such paralysis that we are rendered useless. The remedy to the events of our past is to have “godly sorrow” towards them, which “produces repentance leading to salvation, NOT to be REGRETTED" (2Cor. 7:10). The tragedies of our past were under God’s control; therefore they are NOT to be REGRETTED. To regret what God has sovereignty permitted is to reject His control in our life.I cannot hold onto any regrets of my past. The apostle Paul writes it best: “For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication!  In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.”I am indeed ashamed of my ugly past, but I also believe that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). Thus, I'd rather throw myself wholly into the mercies of God than to sorrow like the world. You see, godly sorrow makes a 180° turn to progress, while dwelling on the past (worldly sorrow) does a 360° flip to regress. The former degree changes the direction of life for the good, while the latter leaves you facing the same way for the bad.