Godly sorrow and repentance

[cedward1]

I recently discovered that my life has shown no evidence of being a Christian life. I have been somewhat indifferent to sin, have not honored God or confessed Jesus as Lord. I made a mental aknowledgement of Jesus as Savior, and thought that that was enough.

It became apparent to me that I have been living as a hypocrite, and I want to be truly saved. Studying a bit more about this, it seems that to be truly converted I must repent of sin, and many say that to truly repent of sin I must have Godly sorrow.

The problem is, when I realized that I wasn't a true Christian, I became afraid of going to Hell. I have been reading a lot about this Godly sorrow, but how does one notice sorrow when there is a fear over not feeling it? It isn't as though I were someone burdened by the weight of my sin and suddenly realized that I needed to be born again. I was someone who thought I was born again and suddenly realized that I wasn't showing any signs of it. Before I could feel any true sorrow, I got scared and the fear hasn't gone away too much.

If Godly sorrow is a gift from God, I know it is not something I myself can "do". Would God leave me in a state where I knew I was lost, and yet not be able to be saved? Do I just wait for the Holy Spirit to work on me, and will He do so despite my fear?

 

[Avniel]

I honestly don't think anyone on this forum can give you the advice you are looking for. But what I can say is that praying and doing more then just studying a bit will lead to a stronger relationship with Christ. Read an hour a day and pray for 15 mins before bed, spend time talking to God and building a relationship with Him He will teach you more about Him and thus teach you more about yourself. If you need an e-bible study buddy inbox me I'd be more then happy to study with you brother

 

[Emmy]

Dear cedward1. The Bible keeps telling us to " Repent," feel truly sorry, and change from doing wrong to becoming as God wants you to: loving and caring, in fact be "reborn". Follow Jesus`s 2 Commandments, 1) Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 2) Love your neighbour as yourself. Jesus will give you His Love and Joy, and the Holy Spirit will give you His Love, too. Jesus told us to "ask and ye will receive," and then we thank God and share all Love and Joy with all around us. God will see and God will approve and bless us, and God will know that we love Him. Why?? because we are following God`s Commandments to love. Matthew, chapter 22, verse 35-40, will tell you, what God really wants from us, and that on those two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. God is Love, cedward, and God wants loving children. Jesus our Saviour is waiting to help and guide us all the way. Remember! Ask and ye will receive. I say this with love. Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.

 

[cedward1]

Emmy, I guess my point is that one just can't decide to feel sorry for sin one day. Not that I don't have a conscience, but I have never had a deep, heart felt sorrow over sin. I always just kind of sinned and felt the pang of conscience, and assumed that that was repentance.

For a while I was afraid that the Holy Spirit had been working on me and I had rejected this work, and He left me. But then I realized that my life has always been like this. I have never been truly sorry for sin, or really interested in God until lately.

So it seems as though I am in the same place as an unbeliever who has never fully grasped the gospel. I mean, I know all the facts, but that isn't the same thing. But if I seek I will find, and that's a promise made by God Himself. So there should be hope for me.

 

[timf]

I was someone who thought I was born again and suddenly realized that I wasn't showing any signs of it.

There are certain schools of Christian thought that focus on proving your salvation. They establish many criteria, but often end up only producing uncertainty and confusion. Consider the thief on the cross. He had no works or proof other than his faith. Consider the tax collector who had nothing but his sorrow. Here is something I wrote in response to another post regarding assurance of salvation that may be helpful.

Jesus says that there will be many to whom he will say, "I never knew you". We also see Jesus telling the Pharisees, "you are of your father the devil". There have been, are, and will be people who are mistaken about their salvation and the status of their relationship with God.

The question becomes, "How can we be sure?"

The Bible says both that we can "know" we are saved (1John 5:13), and that we should examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith (2Corinthians 13:5). This is not a contradiction.The Bible tells us that there is uncertainty and can be certainty. The Bible also tells us to persevere. To the theologian this apparent ambiguity is something he must resolve and explain. As a result, there are many doctrines of various denominations that are promulgated more for their tidiness than their accuracy.

We might want to consider that the lack of Biblical specificity is not an error, but rather the desire of God that we derive our assurance of salvation directly from Him. God may want us unsure and ill at ease until we mature in faith and grow in the image of Christ and closer to Him.

Some religious experts offer measurement standards such as having been baptized, saying a particular prayer, having taken Jesus "into your heart", or made Jesus Lord of your life as the criteria to guarantee that one is saved.

If someone asks me if they are saved, I try to help them by using measurement criteria from the Bible. For example, the Bible is foolishness to those that are perishing, "Do you think the Bible is foolish?". The Bible says that people will know that we are Christians by the love we have for each other, "Do you have love for other Christians?" We have been sealed with the Holy Spirit, "Do you discern His presence?" The Christian is supposed to be in a process of becoming like Jesus, "Are you becoming like Jesus?".

For the person who is not comforted by such questions, I suggest that he put more work into knowing his Savior, the Bible, and surrendering himself to Jesus. Often it is our worldly attachments and walking in the flesh that prevent us from growing closer to his Lord and thus able to draw certainty of salvation.

Our modern organizational religious systems have lost the personal touch. They will often tell someone to be assured because they have met the established criteria and are thus saved. The relational component of Christianity comes in when an older and wiser Christian brother or sister can show a younger one how to draw closer to Jesus and gain the assurance they seek directly from Him who saved them. Christians do not need to fight over what they feel is the most accurate doctrinal statement. They need to encourage those whose faith is weak and walk is distant to draw closer to their Lord and draw their certainty directly from Him who loves them.

 

[Emmy]

Dear cedward1. Keep seeking, and you will find. When we pray, we talk to God, keep praying and asking God to help you, God knows, God can, and God will help you. I say this with love. Greetings from Emmy, your sister in Christ.

 

[BFine]

2 Corinthians 8-13 Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while— yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. 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. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. So even though I wrote to you, it was neither on account of the one who did the wrong nor on account of the injured party, but rather that before God you could see for yourselves how devoted to us you are. By all this we are encouraged.

2 Corinthians 7:10 For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There's no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.

 

[Johnnz]

Repentance isn't all about being sorrowful anyway. That may be only sometimes. We become far more motivated by love (God's) and the truth of what the gospel really is in all its scope and vast vision for whole-of life living.

John
NZ

 

[Migdala]

I recently discovered that my life has shown no evidence of being a Christian life. I have been somewhat indifferent to sin, have not honored God or confessed Jesus as Lord. I made a mental aknowledgement of Jesus as Savior, and thought that that was enough.

It became apparent to me that I have been living as a hypocrite, and I want to be truly saved. Studying a bit more about this, it seems that to be truly converted I must repent of sin, and many say that to truly repent of sin I must have Godly sorrow.

The problem is, when I realized that I wasn't a true Christian, I became afraid of going to Hell. I have been reading a lot about this Godly sorrow, but how does one notice sorrow when there is a fear over not feeling it? It isn't as though I were someone burdened by the weight of my sin and suddenly realized that I needed to be born again. I was someone who thought I was born again and suddenly realized that I wasn't showing any signs of it. Before I could feel any true sorrow, I got scared and the fear hasn't gone away too much.

If Godly sorrow is a gift from God, I know it is not something I myself can "do". Would God leave me in a state where I knew I was lost, and yet not be able to be saved? Do I just wait for the Holy Spirit to work on me, and will He do so despite my fear?

I'm in the same boat you are, although I didn't used to be that way. I used to have a very "Godly sorrow" over my sins, to the point where I made myself sick crying and begging for forgiveness.

From what I understand, the word "repent" means to turn away from, or have a change of heart. We see the thief on the cross simply acknowledged Jesus as Savior at the point when He least looked like it-He was hanging on the cross, marred more than any man on earth...yet the thief still believed He was Lord at that moment, and Jesus said He would be with Him in Paradise. The thief "changed his heart" about who Jesus was, and was saved.

Peter, after he denied Christ, was sorrowful-he cried and cried and came back to Jesus. He had a "godly sorrow"...yet Judas, after he betrayed Jesus, did not RETURN to Him...instead he went out and killed himself. I've often wondered if he would have been able to be saved if he had ran back to Jesus and begged for forgiveness....I still don't know. I tend to think that Judas was born for that purpose alone-to betray Jesus. If that is the case, he had no chance at all. Like you're saying, there is nothing a person can do that will cause him to have a change of heart unless the Holy Spirit opens their heart to recieve Jesus.

It was interesting...I pray constantly that God will give me more sorrow for my sins-more of a repentant heart. It scares me that my heart seems so hard compared to when I first got saved. A strange thing happened though, a few months ago. All of a sudden, I got what I was asking for-I kept thinking of what a filthy, horrible sinner I was....and I kept thinking of Jesus in the background...I'm not explaining it very well, but it was almost like the Holy Spirit was calling me to salvation, even though I've already been saved! I had no clue what to do or say, so I just kept saying "Yes Jesus, I recieve you,and believe You are Lord and that you died for my sins!" But I still felt like I was a filthy sinner in need of a Savior......

I felt like that for about 2 weeks that I know. Finally those feelings went away....not sure what was happening, or what God was trying to show me-it was very strange experience!

When I first got saved, I had incredible amounts of remorse for sin, love for God, and love for others. Total hatred for my sins. I wish I could say that I still have that, but I am honest and know that somehow my heart does not seem to be "right" with God, and I don't know what to do about it at all, other than to keep praying, seeking Him, reading my Bible, going to church, and attempting to love others and avoid anything I know is a sin....and hope and pray that God has mercy on my hardened heart and will show me what else to do to be closer to Him. Yet, I know it is a gift, so I can't earn my salvation.

If you ever want to talk, message me-I'm going through the same thing...

 

[1-4 All OurGodAll 4-1Sad]

Have faith cedward1.The fact that you have come to realize that you have not been living as a Christian shows that you are on the right track.
The cart doesn't go before the horse and God does not expect us to feel true sorrow for our sins before anything else.Its once we start to have faith(ACTUALLY believing that God is real)even if only really thinking hard about it and for a split second actually realizing that God really is there and starting to make some sacrifices for our Lord(giving up some sin)or even trying(though slowly making progress)and reading your Bible,praying that God will start to work in you.
God does hate sin,and he will come to the party but you need to show God what you want to do with the free will He has given you.

 

[cedward1]

Its once we start to have faith(ACTUALLY believing that God is real)even if only really thinking hard about it and for a split second actually realizing that God really is there and starting to make some sacrifices for our Lord(giving up some sin)or even trying(though slowly making progress)and reading your Bible,praying that God will start to work in you.

I guess where I am now is the part where I ACTUALLY believe that God is real. I mean, I always believed in God, and thought I believed in the God of the Bible. But it was more like I knew about God, and only theoretically believed in the God of the Bible. But recently, I have become really aware that He is the God who created me and everything, and there is a growing conviction that He is the God of the Bible. This is terrifying to me, because I know I have done so much wrong in the past.

The sorrow that I do have at the moment is of not obeying Him. More in general than in specifics. I don't feel as sorry about specific sins as I do about my general rebellion against the One who created me. I feel as though He were my father, I am sorry for doing what He told me not to do, but I am not as sorry for doing the thing itself.

The other worry is that I have seared my conscience, as I have been living like this for years. Some sins that I have done repeatedly I began to stop feeling very guilty over. Do I need an intact conscience for the Holy Spirit to work? I keep trying to think back and see if I feel guilty about them, and I think there is still a bit of conscience there, but it is hard to tell with this fear.

 

[Johnnz]

I don't consider you should be at all worried about a seared conscience. That you are is clearly indicative that yours isn't.

That term appears only once in the NT. You can see its context - people who are following false teaching

1 Tim 4:1-5 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
NIV

Those people were advocating religious asceticism, maybe from some strict Jewish or gnostic influences, and appeared to be unteachable. Hence Paul mentioned them having a seared conscience; they were no loner sensitive to the Holy Spirit and the true freedom of the Gospel.

John
NZ

 

[cedward1]

I don't consider you should be at all worried about a seared conscience. That you are is clearly indicative that yours isn't.

Well, I have heard that. But I don't know because you can still know what is a sin and what isn't without feeling guilt over it. I mean, it is more or less a fact.

I know that my conscience weakened over time as I went on in my sin. (Now it does seem to be coming back as I avoid these sins. That's normal, right?)

The Holy Spirit's conviction would be a bit different than conscience, wouldn't it? I mean, nothing in my heart ever told me that I should give up on sin for Christ's sake. Just normal conscience as far as I could tell.

It's just that I still have that little fear that I may have had the Holy Spirit in me and grieved Him so much that He left me.

 

[paul1149]

If Godly sorrow is a gift from God, I know it is not something I myself can "do". Would God leave me in a state where I knew I was lost, and yet not be able to be saved? Do I just wait for the Holy Spirit to work on me, and will He do so despite my fear?

Take a step back and think about that for a moment. Do you realize that one could spend his entire life caught in that vicious trap? It's essentially a Romans 7 works salvation mentality, in which you can never be good enough.

As John here suggests, repentance does not have to involve sorrow. Sorrow is one way to repentance, but not the only way. Repentance literally means a change of mind. So forget about the emotions, and trying to synthesize them in order to go that route. It won't work. In fact, forget about yourself altogether, because there dwells nothing good within you save Christ Jesus.

Instead, focus outside yourself, on the Author and Finisher of your faith. Place your trust in Him to save you. That's what salvation is. Anyone can be sorry for sin. The jails and mental wards are loaded with such people. That doesn't mean they have faith. The Lord is not interested in punishing you, He's interested in filling you with Himself, and conforming you to His glorious image. The sooner you leave this dilemma behind, and instead come to Him as a child, the sooner you will step forward into a positive faith, and the joy of your salvation.

 

[Johnnz]

Read the end of Romans 8. We cannot adequately interpret scripture if we have blatant contradictions, which can happen if we select verses that appear to support one line of thought but don't consider others that don't 'fit' with that view.

If we have a 'tightrope' kind of faith, where we are unsure of where we stand with God, then we are just like the ancient pagans. Jesus came to give us something far better than that. And in the OT people had greater security than you seem to have. By making their annual offering they could go away knowing that they had another year of peace with God. We have a far better covenant than that!.

John
NZ

 

[cedward1]

So I come to God as a child, wanting Him to fill and transform me. I have done that. But I know that He won't do this unless my faith is in Jesus Christ. How do I make the breakthrough to faith in Jesus Christ? Faith in God has always been in my heart. But faith in Jesus is not as intuitive.

I mean, it's in my head but it isn't in my heart yet.

 

[paul1149]

It's really the mystery of faith. If we will prepare the ground - our heart - God promises to do the rest. The military has an expression, hurry up and wait, that sort of applies here. We do what we can to meet God halfway, but we also know when to leave off and wait on His faithfulness. If we're trying too hard, it's actually not faith at all, it's unbelief. If we're not trying at all - in the sense of turning our hearts toward Him - then we're not serious.

Very simply, just keep extending yourself to the Lord, in little ways during your day. Keep asking, seeking and knocking. If you get some light, conform yourself to it. You'll then get more. If you put Him first, everything else will fall into place. He honors those who honor Him.

 

[cedward1]

Another question: should I seek God primarily through the Bible, should I fellowship with believers, read testimonies, or meditate on the identity of God as I feel it in my heart? Or a combination? What is the best way to seek?

 

[Johnnz]

So I come to God as a child, wanting Him to fill and transform me. I have done that. But I know that He won't do this unless my faith is in Jesus Christ. How do I make the breakthrough to faith in Jesus Christ? Faith in God has always been in my heart. But faith in Jesus is not as intuitive.

I mean, it's in my head but it isn't in my heart yet.

Well, first up, recognise that head and heart can be used as kind of synonyms for either real commitment or desire (heart) or desire that comes from what you know, or the choice you make (head). Hebrew idiom was to say the same thing in two different ways - it's called parallelism.

Faith? Well its Jesus' faith we have, not our own. Paul wrote:
Gal 2:20 20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me: and that (life) which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, (the faith) which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me.ASV

Many modern scholars consider the preposition often translated as 'in' should be 'of' instead. We live out our relationship with the indwelling Christ.

Since God is Trinity if you have Christ have the Father, and if you have the
Father you have Christ "I and the Father are one"; "if you have seen me you have seen the Father".

I reckon you are trying to conjure up some concept for relating to Jesus, when in fact you already have that. Just start living as if that is true, which it is!

John
NZ

 

[paul1149]

All these things are good in their place. And out of their place they become impediments. Try them, judge if they're helping you, walk circumspectly. Each of us is different, and comes a different way. The Lord will give you wisdom even when you don't know what's going on.

It's a matter of the heart. Listen for His voice there. As you attend to Him, He will work to clean up the heart, so you can hear more clearly. Be patient, but persistent.

Look what leads up to the Good Confession:

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.

But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down), or “‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” -Rom 10:1-11​