The Two R’s: Regret

Scripture:   Philippians 3:14 (NKJV) - I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Do you enjoy watching time traveler movies?  I do.  They always seem to have a singular theme running through them:  one revolving around correcting a source of regret.  While most of us can recall an event or comment (or perhaps even an attitude) that had a regretful outcome, I highly commend the God-approved “R,” called repentance!
     
Paul the Apostle surely had many regrets about his “B.C.” (before-Christ) days, and discussed these at some length in Acts 22:4 and 26: 10, 11, but what we remember most about this great apostle is how he poured himself out “as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of {our} faith…” (Phil. 2:17)  He did not linger in a personal history “thought dungeon” wherein he could do nothing to undo his dark past—when he was spiritually dead and serving Satan’s purposes.  It is also highly probable that his regret about those pre-conversion days of his served to give him a much greater empathy for his lost brethren.  He even said in Romans 9:3, “I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites …” What a statement!

Satan, that adversary of the saints, comes only to steal, to kill, and to destroy.  (Jn. 10:10) What better way to discourage and defeat the progress of a King’s kid than to get one all bogged down with dark regrets of things past, about which they can do absolutely nothing!  No, beloved!  Let us emulate David of the Old Testament and Paul of the New!  Recall that while David fasted and prayed after the LORD struck the child born through his adultery with Bathsheba, he repented, as we read in Psalm 51, and pressed on to the future, as evidenced by his query and statement, “Can I bring him back again?  I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”  (2 Sam. 12:23)   Paul, likewise, urges us to be like athletes as we run this marathon called life and keep our focus fixed on our God’s upward call.

Prayer:  Faithful Abba, when the enemy attempts to douse my joy and present growth in Christ with occasional reflections on events from an irretrievable past, remind me that those things really are all covered by the blood of Jesus, in Whose name I pray and give thanks!  Amen!

(by Denise Diggs)