The Necessity of Godly Sorrow (Repentance)

# 692 Today's Du-votional comes from: Mr 14:21 "The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had never been born."

Jesus, must travel this path of agony because that's the way God wrote the script. But woe to Judas. Jesus sees and knows the end of Judas. He sees and knows that Judas will be remorseful over his act of betrayal, and sadly He sees that Judas will not understand that even this act of betrayal is a forgivable sin.

Make no mistake about it, Judas is in hell. In the Gospel of John Jesus refers to Judas as the “son of perdition,” which means he belongs to the damned.

Here's the problem for Judas. He had sorrow over his sin, but he did not have godly sorrow. Godly sorrow, simply put, is admitting that your actions have offended a holy God!

It's this kind of sorrow that led to David's restoration with God after his sin with Bathsheba. He confessed, “I have sinned against the Lord!” It is this admission that opens the door to God's healing grace and forgiveness.

Until David made that confession, we read in the psalms that his actions with Bathseba and the murder of her husband really bothered him. Ps 38:3 There is no soundness in my flesh Because of Your anger, Nor any health in my bones Because of my sin.

But his focus was on the people he had offended. He forgot that sin is an offense against God! Likewise Judas viewed his act of betrayal as a sin that resulted in harm to another, but he never made the connection that he had sinned against God.

Since he never got to that point, he could not grasp the idea that God could and would forgive him. So you see, the only unforgivable sin is the outright rejection of God's plan of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Are you struggling with uncertainty about forgiveness? Many times the post-abortive man or woman fall into this trap of having sorrow over what they did to their unborn baby, but not realizing that the real issue is they have offended a holy God. A holy God who is also a loving God and yearns to forgive and heal them, but relief will not come to them until they join David in his confession. “I have sinned against the Lord.”

I have used the sin of abortion as an example, but this admission applies for every sin in our lives.

It's true that when we sin, we let others down, but until we realize that we have let God down, true forgiveness and healing will escape us.

Beloved, we do not have to end up like Judas. There is no sin that God will not forgive. No sin that Jesus did not pay for. And the starting point of forgiveness is that confession to God, that it is against Him that we have sinned.
1Jo 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.