Weather Report From Heaven: Sunny and bright, with an abundance of light and lots of singing and rejoicing.
Scripture- “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17
Insight: Today as we continue our look at Jesus as the Great Physician and Healer, who alone is able to heal all aspects of our life, we look at how He can reconcile all of our shame and regrets. We all make decisions that we wish we hadn’t, and sometimes only a moment after we made them, we are filled with regret. These are known as sins of commission, doing things we know are wrong and wish we hadn’t done. We want a do-over or a take back, but often in life that is not possible. It is not like an Etch- A-Sketch that I loved as a kid, where I could draw anything and then immediately erase it if I didn’t like it. Many times these bad decisions have consequences that can stay with us for a lot longer than we want them to. On the other hand, there are also sins of omission. Things we regret that we didn’t do that we wish we had. These can haunt us even more. The job we turned down that we should have taken; the girl we should have asked out on a date but didn’t; the investment we didn’t make that turned out great for everyone else who did. According to a national study, as people age and look back on their life, these regrets or sins of omission tend to be the ones that are more painful by a 90%-10% margin over the sins of commission. There is something about that feeling of missing out that leaves us feeling very distressed and depressed.
But here is the good news! Whether you have regret over things you did that you wish you hadn’t, or things that you wish you had done that you didn’t, Jesus can heal you and take away all your shame and regrets. He makes everything new and wipes away all of our sorrow and pain. We simply lay our regrets and mistakes down at His feet, and He turns our sorrow and mourning into joy as He removes the stain of our sin as Psalm 103:12 promises “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” CS Lewis once famously wrote “you can’t go back in life and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” That is the hope that we all need some time. We can learn and grow from our regrets and they can be great teachers for our future path. In fact, we are always learning in life and often our mistakes can be our best teachers. Winston Churchill once said “success in life is going from failure to failure without ever losing your enthusiasm.” King David who had many moral failures cried out to the Lord in Psalm 25:20 “Guard my life and rescue me; do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.” The one certain thing in life is we will all make mistakes, and we will all have regrets, but what we do with them is what really matters. I spent 25 years of my life running from or trying to anesthetize the pain of my shame and regrets. Then I encountered Jesus and He took all my pain and regrets away. He restored me. That’s when 2 Corinthians 5:17 became real to me and it has been true for the last 19 years: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17 Hallelujah and amen!
Prayer: Jesus thank you that You are the One who can make everything new. You can take all of our regret away and turn our sorrow to joy. We are so thankful for that. Amen!
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