The Precious Wound of Repentance

𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲.

I have experienced painful things in my lifetime, but truly, it was when God began to reveal to me the depth of my sin, and how it had offended Him, by far, that was the most brutal thing I have ever gone through.

God’s fiery rod of correction applying its’ blistering rebuke… meted in kindness, but leaving behind an indelible impression of my sin… and His grace…

I have spent most of my life as a rigid rule follower. A faithful church member. A perfectionist. A black and white moralist. I do not have a long list of the kinds of offenses people usually label as blatant sin. I was living a very religious life, and I had meticulously attempted to avoid anything that looked remotely evil, and I had aimed, very sincerely, to be a person of good character… a good Christian… spiritual… godly…

But one day… God began to peel back the layers of everything I had ever done in His name, and He showed me how little of it had anything to do with Him… (Matt. 7:21-23)

He showed me how my “conversion” had not been to Christ, but was simply a very determined decision to be good and righteous in my own strength, and to win the approval of people.

He dragged me through the trail of carnage that follows the religious person who is unwittingly operating apart from Him. He let me see how dreadfully I misrepresented Him. He made me look directly into the eyes of the tragic consequences of bad doctrine…

He showed me, how every deception I had fallen prey to, could be traced, almost certainly, to my own pride, and that it was this pride that was my true god.

He showed me, that I had not bowed to Christ, but had only bowed to my own self interests.

I cannot even express that horror.

The horror of my sin.

The horror of how my sin affected others.

The horror of how my sin raged against my Creator and my Savior.

The horror of having spent a lifetime in and among and surrounded by and submerged in Christianity and believing all the while that I was serving God… that I was promoting Christ…

But wasn’t.

I had not only been deceived! I had participated in spreading a counterfeit… I shared a gross misrepresentation of Christ. Is there any sin more vile? I cannot imagine one…

Those painful realizations became a searing brand upon my soul that makes me wince to this very day.

Becoming aware of these things plunged me into a grieving process that never really seems to end. My eyes still brim with hot tears when I consider the weight and the ugliness of them. Much like losing a loved one, the grief subtly changes, but it never “goes away.”

It becomes part of you.

God’s blazing exposure upon my soul left a wound that is never silent and every day, that smarting wound reminds me of what I was…

What I am apart from Him…

How unquantifiably disastrous I am in this world without His constant help…

How even when I am propelled by my utmost determination and passion, 𝘐 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘏𝘪𝘮…

But along with its tinge of agony, that precious wound reminds me of 𝘢𝘯 𝘶𝘯𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦…

𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘫𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝙥𝙪𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙢𝙚 𝙤𝙪𝙩…

𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯… 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙘𝙪𝙚 𝙢𝙚…

Precious Savior!

When I stumbled and fell among the snares, and I could not find my way out… and I groped through the confusion and wrestled through the chaos and strained to hear through the religious noise all around me…

I cried out for His help…

And there He was!

His Word, a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path! (Ps. 119:105) How desperately I clung to Him! I relinquished every sliver of trust I had in myself. There was not a fragment of my being that I had any confidence in, but He is Truth, and Truth sets one free! (John 8:32)

What grace!

What mercy!

It is incomprehensible that He would extend it to me, wretch of wretches, but He has!

The marvelous goodness of God!

I am convinced, that repentance cannot be manufactured. I could seek it, but I could not produce it at will. I wasn’t even aware of my need of it, or my absence of reliance upon Him, or how tragically I had missed the mark until He illuminated my very soul to see it…

Until He laid that wound upon me…

That sorrow for sin….

That grief for grieving Him…

That abhorrence of all things that abhor Him…

It was a painful wound. A brutal wound.

But for all my days, I will thank Him…

Every time it pricks my heart, I will thank Him for the way it reminds me of how little I am, and how great He is, and for the amazing grace that spanned the eternal gulf between us…

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2-1-10

Scriptures to consider

Acts 11:18; Revelation 3:19; 2 Peter 3:9; Acts 26:20; Hebrews 12:5-13; Matthew 13:3-9; Genesis 32:22-32; Ephesians 2:1-9; Romans 2:4; John 8:12; 31-32; 2 Corinthians 7:8-11; Matthew 7:21-23