This is great from the rosamond church of Christ bulletin. The Good Side of Bad Author: Paul Seely (Scripture from NKJV) I preach a lot on the subject of forgiveness. I suppose I do it because they are messages that I need reminding of; they are sermons that I really need to hear. I have done terrible things in my life that I needed forgiveness for; terrible things that made me feel that I don’t deserve forgiveness. I think that we all live with regret and remorse for the wrongs we have done in our past, and if we don’t, maybe we should be worried about that. Sometimes we look at sorrow and shame and guilt as being wholly negative feelings. We see them as only being destroyers; as threats to our emotional, psychological and spiritual well-being. But those emotions serve a purpose: they can bring us closer to God if we give them an opportunity. Sorrow is an emotion peculiar to the human condition; we experience sadness, and longing, and grief. Our human lives are really just a long string of goodbyes, and goodbyes are hard. We say goodbye to our youth, our friends, our family, our spouses, our children, grand-children; and given a long enough time-line, we say goodbye to everyone and everything on this earth. But that is not necessarily such a bad thing, because in a Christian it can produce Hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). You see, for Christians this sorrow is a temporary affliction. We have the hope of a joyous life after this one: “Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy” (John 16:20); a life where goodbyes don’t even exist. Sometimes it is not loss that grieves us, but it’s the sorrow of remorse. When we wrong someone, we feel sorrow. In fact, if we have hurt someone deeply enough, we can easily be engulfed and overwhelmed by feelings of remorse and shame and guilt. But this, also, does not have to be such a bad thing; because in a Christian it can produce a Godly sorrow, one that leads to repentance. As it says in 2 Corinthians 7:10, “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” When we do something wrong and we feel this Godly sorrow, we feel shame, don’t we? Even if we don’t “get caught,” we still will look at our behavior and feel ashamed, won’t we? We feel that way because we know we have disappointed someone; that person could be a stranger, a neighbor, a brother or a sister, God, or even just our own selves. Feeling shameful because we have disappointed is not necessarily such a bad thing, because in a Christian it can produce motivation. “For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter” (2 Corinthians 7:11). But when we behave sinfully, even after we repent, and even after we receive forgiveness, we still have to live with the guilt, don’t we? We still feel the guilt that comes from knowing that we grieved someone else, or God, or even just ourselves. But feeling guilt isn’t necessarily such a bad thing, because in a Christian it can produce humility “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-24). God has given us emotions, even ones we sometimes view as “negative” ones, to govern us, to train us, to test us, and to refine us. Let’s all try and appreciate the wisdom of God when we find ourselves deep in our sorrow, and in our shame, our remorse, and our guilt. Let’s all start looking at the good side of bad.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 08:07:06 +0000