On how many mornings have I, like Peter, heard the cock crow thrice with an aching heart!
Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990)
Your righteousness, O God,
reaches the high heavens.
You who have done great things,
O God, who is like you?
You who have made me see many troubles and calamities
will revive me again;
from the depths of the earth
you will bring me up again.
You will increase my greatness
and comfort me again.
~ Psalm 71:19-21
Oh beloved, this writer looks back some days on some of the days before he became one with the One who makes all things new. It was a life of living in the flesh and a life controlled by the need to comfort myself in my own self-induced pain.
And it makes me want to wretch.
The pain i caused, the people i hurt, the time i wasted, the souls perhaps lost… all this kind of stuff often tries to threaten the clarity of a generally happy and joyful soul made new. It is not shame. Rather it is this profound and almost overwhelming desire to never, not ever, meaninglessly hurt another person ever again.
For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. 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!
~ 2 Corinthians 7:10-11a
But then enters the very good news of the Gospel.
It is done. That old man is not in play any more.
Take a moment to absorb the following passage. Really. Slow down for a moment and listen to the Spirit use an expert theologian, the Apostle Paul, to explain something.
For we do not commend ourselves again to you, but give you opportunity to boast on our behalf, that you may have an answer for those who boast in appearance and not in heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; or if we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
~ 2 Corinthians 5:12-21
Are we catching this friend?
In Christ, the man you were – is no longer the man you are.
The broken relationship you had with G_d – has been put back at a right angle of relationship.
The dust you were – has been transformed into the righteous spiritual foundation of the throne of G_d.
This is very good news.
Would that we might, when the world and the evil one screams about our past – we simply answer back with the truth. “That old guy is dead. And the new guy G_d has made is a very good guy indeed.”
Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement; he is a rebel who must lay down his arms…. This process of surrender—this movement full speed astern—is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death.
~C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
