Regret frets the soul as tension frets the nerves and anxiety the mind. I believe that the chronic unhappiness of most Christians may be attributed to a gnawing uneasiness lest God has not fully forgiven them, or the fear that He expects as the price of His forgiveness some sort of emotional penance which they have not furnished.
As our confidence in the goodness of God mounts, our anxieties will diminish and our moral happiness rise in inverse proportion.
Regret may be no more than a form of self-love.
A man may have such a high regard for himself that any failure to live up to his own image of himself disappoints him deeply. He feels that he has betrayed his better self by his act of wrongdoing, and even if God is willing to forgive him he will not forgive himself.
Sin brings to such a man a painful loss of face that is not soon forgotten. He becomes permanently angry with himself and tries to punish himself by going to God frequently with petulant self-accusations. This state of mind crystallizes finally into a feeling of chronic regret which appears to be a proof of deep penitence but is actually proof of deep self-love. Regret for a sinful past will remain until we truly believe that for us in Christ that sinful past no longer exists.
The man in Christ has only Christs past and that is perfect and acceptable to God.
In Christ he died.
In Christ he rose, and in Christ he is seated within the circle of Gods favored ones.
He is no longer angry with himself because he is no longer self-regarding, but Christ-regarding; hence there is no place for regret.
verse
For Christ died for our sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit.
— 1 Peter 3:18
thought
We don't have to tell God how bad we are. He knows. He also knows that He has provided for us new life in Christ. Let's live in His grace today, not in our sinful past.
prayer
There is grace with You to cover all my sin. I turn from regret and self-love. Into Your healing stream I plunge.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
It may be argued that the absence of regret indicates a low and inadequate view of sin, but the exact opposite is true.
Sin is so frightful, so destructive to the soul that no human thought or act can in any degree diminish its lethal effects.
Only God can deal with it successfully; only the blood of Christ can cleanse it from the pores of the spirit.
The heart that has been delivered from this dread enemy feels not regret but wondrous relief and unceasing gratitude.
The returned prodigal honors his father more by rejoicing than by repining.
Had the young man in the story had less faith in his father he might have mourned in a corner instead of joining in the festivities.
His confidence in the lovingkindness of his father gave him the courage to forget his checkered past.
verse
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God.
— Hebrews 9:14
thought
Christ's death for us removes our sin and scrubs clean our consciences. It is time to bury regret and serve the living God!
prayer
Lord, I turn from that regret that refuses to accept Your Word and Your promise. May praise to You fill my heart as I serve You.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
There is indeed a godly sorrow that worketh repentance (2 Cor. 7:10), and it must be acknowledged that among us Christians this feeling is often not present in sufficient strength to work real repentance; but the persistence of this sorrow till it becomes chronic regret is neither right nor good.
Regret is a kind of frustrated repentance that has not been quite consummated.
Once the soul has turned from all sin and committed itself wholly to God there is no longer any legitimate place for regret.
When moral innocence has been restored by the forgiving love of God the guilt may be remembered, but the sting is gone from the memory.
The forgiven man knows that he has sinned, but he no longer feels it. The effort to be forgiven by works is one that can never be completed because no one knows or can know how much is enough to cancel out the offense; so the seeker must go on year after year paying on his moral debt, here a little, there a little, knowing that he sometimes adds to his bill much more than he pays.
The task of keeping books on such a transaction can never end, and the seeker can only hope that when the last entry is made he may be ahead and the account fully paid. This is quite the popular belief, this forgiveness by self-effort, but it is a natural heresy and can at last only betray those who depend upon it.
verse
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
— 2 Corinthians 7:10
thought
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation. Godly sorrow leaves no regret because genuine repentance has occurred. Perpetual regret is not from God. It only leads to endless effort to earn God's grace.
prayer
I know, Lord, that I can never earn Your forgiveness or merit Your grace. Forgive me for trying.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Long after we have learned from the Scriptures that we cannot, by fasting or the wearing of a hair shirt or the making of many prayers, atone for the sins of the soul, we still tend by a kind of pernicious natural heresy to feel that we can please God and purify our souls by the penance of perpetual regret.
This latter is the Protestants unacknowledged penance.
Though he claims to believe in the doctrine of justification by faith he still secretly feels that what he calls godly sorrow will make him dear to God.
Though he may know better he is caught in the web of a wrong religious feeling and betrayed.
verse
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions?it is by grace you have been saved.
— Ephesians 2:4-5
thought
It seems that when we have repeatedly been forgiven for a particular sin and then fall again that asking forgiveness does not seem enough. We feel that we have to do something for God. What we have to do is to ask forgiveness, receive it and then walk by
prayer
Thank You for forgiveness and cleansing, Lord. I trust You for enablement to live for You as I walk by Your Spirit day by day.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The human heart is heretical by nature.
Popular religious beliefs should be checked carefully against the Word of God, for they are almost certain to be wrong.
Legalism, for instance, is natural to the human heart.
Grace in its true New Testament meaning is foreign to human reason, not because it is contrary to reason but because it lies beyond it.
The doctrine of grace had to be revealed; it could not have been discovered.
The essence of legalism is self-atonement.
The seeker tries to make himself acceptable to God by some act of restitution, or by self-punishment or the feeling of regret.
The desire to be pleasing to God is commendable certainly, but the effort to please God by self-effort is not, for it assumes that sin once done may be undone, an assumption wholly false.
verse
Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.
— Psalm 32:1-2
thought
O the blessedness of sins forgiven, knowing that God no longer counts them against us. The amazing grace of God!
prayer
O Christ, I could never atone for my sins. You have done it. I receive the forgiveness You give. I glory in Your grace.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
We must think of the surrounding world of people and things against the background of our thoughts of God.
The experienced Christian will never think of anything directly; his thoughts go first to God and from God out to His creation.
His thoughts, like the angels of Jacobs ladder, ascend and descend, but ever God stands above them presiding over all.
To be heavenly-minded we must think heavenly thoughts. So let us return to ourselves, brothers, . . . for it is impossible for us to be reconciled and united with God if we do not first return to ourselves . . . striving constantly to keep attention on the kingdom of heaven which is within us.
So wrote Nicephorus, a father of the Greek Orthodox Church, in the fourteenth century, and nothing since has changed. God must have all our thoughts it we would experience the sanctification of our minds.
verse
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
— Psalm 139:23
thought
What are my thoughts toward God, myself, other people, circumstances and situations? Is my thinking faith-focused or mired in doubt? Do I see other people as God sees them? For many of us, basic changes are needed in our thinking.
prayer
Father, purify my thinking. Increase my sensitivity to what I think. Transform my mind. For Christ's sake.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
We must think of the surrounding world of people and things against the background of our thoughts of God.
The experienced Christian will never think of anything directly; his thoughts go first to God and from God out to His creation.
His thoughts, like the angels of Jacobs ladder, ascend and descend, but ever God stands above them presiding over all.
To be heavenly-minded we must think heavenly thoughts. So let us return to ourselves, brothers, . . . for it is impossible for us to be reconciled and united with God if we do not first return to ourselves . . . striving constantly to keep attention on the kingdom of heaven which is within us.
So wrote Nicephorus, a father of the Greek Orthodox Church, in the fourteenth century, and nothing since has changed. God must have all our thoughts it we would experience the sanctification of our minds.
verse
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
— Psalm 139:23
thought
What are my thoughts toward God, myself, other people, circumstances and situations? Is my thinking faith-focused or mired in doubt? Do I see other people as God sees them? For many of us, basic changes are needed in our thinking.
prayer
Father, purify my thinking. Increase my sensitivity to what I think. Transform my mind. For Christ's sake.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Thinking is a kind of living.
To think and to be aware that we think is to be conscious; life without consciousness is but a shadow of life, having no meaning and being of no value to the individual.
Our thoughts are the product of our thinking, and since these are of such vast importance to us it is imperative that we learn how to think rightly. I am not concerned here with that kind of profound cerebration known as heavy thinking.
Few of us have the intellectual equipment to enable us, or the will power to compel us, to engage in such heroic mental exercise. I am dealing here with that kind of thinking done by every normal person every waking moment from birth to death. After all, it is not our heavy thinking that shapes our characters, but the quiet attention of the mind to the surrounding world day after day throughout our lives.
Men are influenced more by their common, everyday thinking than by any rare intellectual feat such as writing a great poem or painting a famous picture. Feats of thinking may create reputation, but habits of thinking create character The incredible mental accomplishments of an Einstein, for instance, had almost nothing to do with the kind of human being he was; the constant, undramatic, moment-by-moment interplay of his mind with his environment, on the other hand, had almost everything to do with it.
We all live in two environments, the one being the world around us, the other our thoughts about that world.
The larger world cannot affect us directly; it must be mediated to us by our thoughts, and will be to us at last only what we allow it to be.
verse
Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking.
— 2 Peter 3:1
thought
We all think. All day long we think. What we think has so much to do with what we are and what we are becoming. It strongly influences our living. Are we disciplining ourselves in wholesome thinking?
prayer
Holy Spirit, guide me in my thinking. How I perceive and interpret the world around me, the words and actions of people. Stimulate me to wholsome thinking. In Jesus' name.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Truth cannot aid us until we become participators in it.
We only possess what we experience. St. Gregory of Sinai, who lived in the fourteenth century, taught that understanding and participation were inseparable in the spiritual life. He who seeks to understand commandments without fulfilling commandments, and to acquire such understanding through learning and reading, is like a man who takes a shadow for truth.
For the understanding of truth is given to those who have become participants in truth (who have tasted it through living).
Those who are not participants in truth and are not initiated therein, when they seek this understanding, draw it from a distorted wisdom. Of such men the apostle says ?the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit, even though they boast of their knowledge of truth.
Here is a simple but neglected doctrine that should be restored to its rightful place in the thinking and teaching of the Church. It would work wonders.
verse
The Lord says: 'These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is made up only of rules taught by men.'
— Isaiah 29:13
thought
Some of us measure our commitment to Christ by the truth we mouth and the rules we keep?rules which may be man-made and not from God. But truth must be tasted through living if we are to be participants in it.
prayer
Lord, teach me what it means to participate in Your truth that through it I may be free.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/