We've all heard the saying, "Don't make the same mistakes."
Why is this important and what happens when we do? How do we keep from it?
If our God is a forgiving God then it should be fine if we keep on making the same mistakes, right? He will forgive us, right? Yes, it is true that He always forgives but at some point our mistakes will be made public. He always forgives but he cares more for our holiness than our happiness. When we do things that don't please or glorify Him eventually these will come forward.
There is always an emptiness and void when we are doing things that don't please Him.
The definition of repent is to change one's mind. This is not just a one time thing. This is an ongoing process. There's also nothing about guilt involved. This is a happy thing. To change our minds to align with God's is joyeous repenting. Satan would like for us to feel so guilty and to hide from God. He enjoys the fact that we feel so guilty that God would never accept us in the nastiness of what we have done.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Jesus shows us again and again, there is nothing He can't forgive. The Samaritan woman at the well who has been married five times and now living with a man, the prostitute that anoints his feet with perfume, the tax collectors, the sick, the mentally unstable, the demon-possessed. All these he loves.
There is nothing too nasty for Him. Nothing.
Time and again when we fall, he picks us up. Eventually, though, to turn us back to Him completely He may make our fallings known. This is not to humiliate us, though. This is so we will not hide away in our darkness, this is so others who care for us so deeply will come and walk beside us, this is so we can call out to Him in our shame and recognize the only Source that can truly pull us out of the pit.
Our God is not a god of guilt, He is a God of Grace, Peace, and Understanding.
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