Regret — it can be a tortuous wave of despair that keeps on rolling over and over through our lives.
Whether it be one momentary lapse of good judgment or a season of unhealthy patterns that form the perfect storm, the actual event that leads to regret changes everything.
And it is rarely ever a solo punch.
Most often the lives of everyone connected to the person suffering from regret are changed in some way — and some forever.
It is more than being disappointed about getting caught or offering false remorse for receiving negative pushback.
It is a genuine feeling of repentance that grips us at the center of our soul.
Regret is a true feeling of remorse, deep repentance and extreme sadness over what has happened.
You will know it when you see it. The humility, the despair, the brokenness seep from the person’s pores.
Surviving the initial blow, humiliation and blowback is the first step forward.
And while that first step is hard the lonely journey that follows might be even harder for the truly repentant.
Space for grace
But brokenness leaves the regret-filled person with a choice just as it offers those around them an opportunity.
For the person walking through regret, it can provide a space for God to show us His grace in a way never experienced before.
When we know more of the depth of our sin and brokenness, we can marvel even more at the unfathomable love and forgiveness offered to us through Christ.
Power in the pain
But we have to make that choice.
We have to choose to let those painful memories drive us to worship and gratitude for our forgiveness.
We have to choose to let our pain push us toward Christ and away from deeper sin.
And for people who are surrounding the person carrying regret, it’s a chance to remember God’s grace and remember our own sins too.
None of us is perfect. We all have the ability to dive headlong into sin.
We have to call each other to right choices, but when someone is truly repentant, we can choose to walk alongside our broken brother or sister in love.
That’s who we are. We strive for holiness.
We repent with sincere hearts. We bind up our wounded.
The key is real repentance — and real love.
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Rashional Extras – Invite everyone, invest in a few
By Kevin Blackwell
Excerpt from drkevinblackwell.com
Great disciple-making movements are not created through large-scale invitations to crowds. Great disciple-making movements begin small and grow big. Effective disciple making doesn’t depend on additions to a ministry, it involves investing in a few who will multiply themselves in others.
Disciple-making movements foster multiplying momentum in the lives of a few, while traditional discipleship programs depend on the perpetual motivation of attenders. We have to look no further than the example of Jesus, the greatest disciple maker who ever lived, to understand.
Jesus never pandered to the crowds and never made it His goal to attract large audiences. Actually, the opposite is true. After He calls the disciples to be “fishers of men” we find Him with the masses 17 times and investing in His few disciples 46 times.
Jesus didn’t preach to the whole world during His ministry, instead He spent the majority of His time discipling a few men who would later take His message to the world.
Clearly, when you study the ministry of Jesus chronologically that was His model. If it was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for us.
We are called to equip believers to be disciple makers. It is a call to repair or mend while also preparing for use. Mend and send; repairing while preparing.
As you prepare to welcome big crowds to church remember that God has not called you to fill the church, He has called you to a disciple-making movement.
Disciple-making movements eventually bring multiplication which, in time, will bring a great harvest of souls into the kingdom of God. Who are you currently discipling and equipping?
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How to ruin your life
Excerpted with permission from “How to Ruin Your Life” by Eric Geiger. Copyright 2018, B&H Publishing Group.
All of us are prone to wander and fall, so we need people around us who … love us enough to confront us when our hearts are unattended by truth, when our relationships are unattended by forgiveness and when our decisions are unattended by the Lord’s agenda.
To set yourself up for an implosion, simply fail to surround yourself with people who will say something to you when they see your life unattended. To implode, choose isolation.
To set up your family or friends for implosion, cower and remain silent when you see something suspicious in their lives. Don’t speak up; don’t say anything. To help them to implode, enable isolation by looking the other way.
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@ronniefloyd
Anyone can create suspicion about others, sow seeds of division in the faith family and disunity in relationships. Christian leaders are called to a higher standard. Lead high and lead others to unity.
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“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. …
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”
Galatians 5:13–26
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