Sorrow is a Powerful Thing
2 Corinthians 7:9,10 Now I am happy, not because you were made sad, but because your sorrow made you decide to change. That is what God wanted, so you were not hurt by us in any way. The kind of sorrow God wants makes people decide to change their lives. This leads them to salvation, and we cannot be sorry for that. But the kind of sorrow the world has will bring death.
“Identity politics” is a term that’s doing the rounds these days. It’s this idea that you have no right to comment on my lifestyle because this is who I am. But if that’s the case, how are any of us ever going to grow and learn and change, to become all we’ve been made to be?
These days you have to be careful not to say things that will offend people. But that’s difficult, because the truth – God’s truth – is offensive.
If someone’s intent on living their life one way, and we come along and say, “Well actually, according to God, that’s wrong …” then we’ve just broken the cardinal rule by offending them.
But there’s nothing new in any of that. This is what Paul wrote to the church in Corinth almost two thousand years ago:
2 Corinthians 7:9,10 Now I am happy, not because you were made sad, but because your sorrow made you decide to change. That is what God wanted, so you were not hurt by us in any way. The kind of sorrow God wants makes people decide to change their lives. This leads them to salvation, and we cannot be sorry for that. But the kind of sorrow the world has will bring death.
Sometimes we will be offended, but we do need to experience sorrow at receiving the truth into our hearts – because the power of that is the positive change that can be wrought in our lives.
How many divorces would still be marriages if people had accepted the truth of unconditional love into their hearts? How many enemies would be friends, how many tears would be wiped away, lives changed, people set free, if we’d accepted God’s truth into our hearts.
Sure, God’s ways may be offensive, but …
The kind of sorrow God wants makes people decide to change their lives. This leads them to salvation, and we cannot be sorry for that.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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