A Trip Down Memory Lane - Pt 3

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter. (2 Corinthians 7:10-11 ESV).

The past is a source of healthy repentance. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise. You had no hope and were without God in the world.” (Ephesians 2:12). Isn’t it amazing that he told us to remember that? I just think that is amazing. I think it would be natural to desire to foirget that. However, we should not desire to forget that, because if we forget from what we were saved, our sense of repentance will be shallow and our enjoyment of grace will be thin. So it was a healthy remembering that Paul was calling the Ephesians to do for the sake of a healthy repenting. The apostle also wrote something very similar to the Corinthians. We have that in our reading today. Notice verse ten: “Godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” In other words, there is way to think about our past that leads to repentance, leads to salvation, leads to life, leads to joy through and beyond regret and there is a worldly way to think about the past that paralyzes you and brings death. Neuroscientists have discovered that when someone recalls an old memory, a representation of the entire event is instantaneously reactivated in the brain that often includes the people, location, smells, music, and other trivia. In fact, recalling old memories can have a cinematic quality. Memories often seem to play out in the mind's eye like an old home movie or even a Technicolor film. The importance of this is supported by recent research. New studies have indicated that people who look at the past through rose-tinted glasses are happier than those who focus on negative past experiences and regrets. “Godly grief” is the key. This kind of regret should always produce an understanding of our position as forgiven and restored. These are the components of Biblical repentance. It is only when we fail to remember the work of Jesus on our behalf that we fail to overcome our sense of failure. We are not failures, even when we fail. We are forgiven! There’s a huge difference in those concepts!