Godly Sorrow

You have been sorry about the same thing for eleven years and nothing has changed except your opinion of yourself. Somebody else opening this today said sorry on Tuesday, meant it, and had forgotten by Thursday. The same verse is for both of you and it will not do the same thing to each.

Paul had written the Corinthians a letter that hurt, and he is honest about how it sat with him. Though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent. He nearly took it back. What settled it was what came afterwards, and he lists it: what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal. Every item is something you could watch from across a room.

For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. That awkward middle clause means a change of direction nobody afterwards wishes they had skipped. Two men were sorry in the same week. Judas repented himself, brought again the thirty pieces of silver, said out loud I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood, and went and hanged himself. Peter went out, and wept bitterly, and was back with the others inside three days. Both were genuinely sorry, and sorrow by itself decided nothing.

So stop grading yours by how bad it feels, and ask what it has produced, over eleven years or since Tuesday. That answer is available today, and you are invited to go and get it.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 129 is Help for Weakness (Romans 8:26).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two