Dave's Diary

Daily Reading: 2 Corinthians 7 and Psalm 125

¹⁰ Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

In the Christian life and in our pursuit of pleasing God, there is a very clear distinction to be made between feeling sad or sorry for something sinful we have done and true repentance. When we have lived in a way that displeases God, we can be sorry about our sin without actually ever repenting from it. But that is not enough. Sorrow over sin needs to give birth to repentance to be of any lasting value in the Kingdom of God.

Verse 10 makes the clear distinction between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow.

Worldly sorrow is a genuine feeling of sadness and even distress that comes upon us when we have fallen short in some way. Often it arrives only when we are caught out in our sin or when we encounter some painful consequence. We feel embarrassment, shame and regret. But once the storm passes, we soon fall back into the same pattern of behaviour once again. The only outcome of worldly sorrow is that we continue going down the road that leads to the spiritual death of separation from God.

Godly sorrow, on the other hand, is an equally genuine feeling of sadness and distress when we have fallen short. It is, however, motivated not by a sense of shame or embarrassment at our failure, but by the awareness that we have displeased the One we love. It’s born of the realization that the road we’re travelling down is leading us away from the Lord, and makes us profoundly determined that we will not continue in the same direction. Godly sorrow, in other words, always leads to that change of mind and behaviour which the Bible calls “repentance“!

Repentance brings our godly sorrow over sin to completion, because it leads to a change in our minds and in our lives.

Life application: Is there something in your life today that requires an ‘about turn’? Ask the Holy Spirit to give you the courage and the resolve necessary to stop, turn around, and walk back to the God-pleasing Way of Jesus.