By Not Known
How easy it is to wrestle an apology from a child who did wrong – intimidate, threaten, deprive, punish… But does a ‘sorry’ mean anything to an unrepentant, stubborn, arrogant and rebellious child? Probably not! It is merely a smart way of getting out of trouble in order to carry on as usual. How often are you truly sorry when you say ‘sorry’?
Knowing what is wrong and admitting what we have done wrong is only a good start. Without turning from wrong to right, our many ‘sorry’s will only excuse our right to keep doing wrong. Eventually, ‘sorry’ becomes an empty word, an insincere apology, and without contrition. When ‘sorry’ becomes a by-word in our lives – a gap-filler to side-step an error, a mask to cover our ungodliness, a red-herring to deceive those we have wronged – relationships are destroyed when trust is broken. How often are you truly sorry when you say ‘sorry’ to others?
Israel’s history in the Old Testament is a sorry-story that reminds readers how much we are like them in our relationship with God. They sinned, God disciplined. They said ‘sorry’, God relented. And then they did it again! Everything else may be recycled, but sin must never be recycled! Yet, without becoming truly ‘sorry’, we are almost poised to recycle sins in our lives again. How often are you truly sorry when you say ‘sorry’ to God?
Sorry means…
• I have sinned against my holy God foremost;
• I value my relationship with God because I am created by him, in him and for him;
• I want to stop adulterating and co-habitating with sin;
• I am committed to censure ungodliness, and to pursue holiness every moment.
Let’s stop recycling SIN! Say SORRY today!