Theme: Life - If Only...
Weekend Music links on iTunes: Sing To The King - Billy Foote, Let God Arise - Chris Tomlin, You'll Come - Hillsongs, Before The Throne - Shane & Shane
Read: Psalm 103:8-12
Think: ‘What do you regret more: things you’ve done or things you haven’t done?’ Sometimes, I like to ask this question to spark conversation. People begin to reflect, and usually can identify regrets of both types. One friend, however, rejected the question entirely. “Why would you regret not doing something?” he asked. “Go do it now. Regret is about what you’ve done.” He made a good point about second chances: don’t waste time regretting something that you can fix now. But we can’t fix everything. As we talked, it seemed increasingly clear to me that my friend, like so many of us, knew guilt well.
In his Easter sermon, Pastor Ben spoke about the ‘if only’s’ of life, and identified guilt as a primary source of our longing for a different outcome in life than what we’ve got. We’ve done bad things, we’ve failed to do good things, and we believe that the sum of our mistakes has made us into someone we don’t want to be. To use our Pastor’s powerful illustration, our guilt becomes the rudder of our lives – small and behind us, but pointing us toward an unpleasant future.
But God did not intend for guilt to weigh us down with conviction. Rather, guilt is an invitation to something better – a life transformed by God’s grace. As the Psalmist wrote, ‘as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.’ Because of the miracle of Easter, God will banish all of that guilt-inducing stuff from our lives. We only need acknowledge it, and bring it to Him. Having forgiven us, God then invites us to live our lives with Him – and without regret.
Do: On a slip of paper, jot down something you regret. Now get rid of it. Since the Post Office won’t deliver to ‘as far as the east is from the west’, maybe just tear it up and throw it away. Burning it is a fine option, too.Pray: God, I suppose you know all of my regrets, even the ones I’ve never shared with anyone else. Just remembering hurts. Can you really help me? Forgive me, God, and take away the pain. Be with me so that I can live today in a way that I will never regret. Amen.
The eDevotional is written each week by a team of volunteers from Timberlake Church.