RESOURCES — SHORT ARTICLES

 

SHORT ARTICLES BY TOM ELSEROAD
	2020-10-20	How Should I Handle My Life Regrets?
		We all have regrets. Some are small and some are large. How should someone who believes in the sovereignty of God look back on my failures? We need to understand that nothing we do can change the past. I like to say, more regret does not fix the past, and more anxiety will not help the future. Nothing I do now will make those years better or worse. So looking back on the past there some things to consider: 1. Remember that we have the kind of Savior that says to the thief on the cross, “Today, you will be with Me in Paradise”. Think about it, just before Jesus died he realizes that everything in the thief's past is regrettable. Nothing he did was done from faith. Nothing was done for the glory of Christ. Yet he will be with Jesus forever. And he will be welcomed. That is an amazing and sweet reality. Psa 130:3  If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Christ died to cover “ten thousand” regrets. 2. Your memory of the past is utterly unreliable If you start and try to measure the spiritual successes and failures of your past you will not have a good perspective Your memory is not up to the task: (a) Many of my sins were hidden from me Psa 19:12  Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. (b) I have long forgotten many things 1Co 1:16  Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas. Besides, I do not know whether I baptized any other. Paul did not remember who he baptized. There are likely thousands of things I do not remember good and bad. (c) My heart is deceitful Jer 17:9  "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I may recall something I thought was good but it was not good. (d) Paul ponders his own record of faithfulness 1Co 4:4  For I know of nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord. Even a good memory is not decisive. Christ alone is decisive. Beware of thinking too high of our memory whether good or bad. 3. It is good to remember our sins and feel regret up to a point (a) A life without regrets is built on an illusion. If you do not see sins when you look back, and do not regret those sins, you are not seeing reality. We all have sinned. There were plenty of attitudes and things done that were not for the glory of God. (b) Paul commanded the gentile converts in Ephesus to remember and regret their prior condition (Ep.2:11-13). They were to “remember” their past before coming to faith in Christ. (c) Surely the reason for this memory is that it deepens our thankfulness for grace. (d) Paul never forgot his regretful past. Near the end of his life he said, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1Tm.1:15) That was a regret! And he never forgot it. Thus it is good to remember our sins and to feel regret up to a point. 4. There is a time for forgetting Php 3:13  Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, Php 3:14  I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Paul said in Ephesian 2 to “remember”. Paul said in Philippians 3 to “forget”. When do you do which? Wherever remembering our failures will help us fly to Christ then get on with remembering and regretting. But wherever remembering begins to paralyze us with the weight of failure so we do not love Christ more, then let us forget and press on by the power of grace. Pastor Tom Elseroad

 

An Evangelical Free Church of America

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