The Stuttering Believer

2 Peter 2:22 – Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.

The Holy Spirit recently revealed a truth to me that was extremely hard to accept. I would routinely fall into the same pattern of sin, cry boo-hoo tears, go to church that Sunday and feel convicted about it. Then a few days later, fall back into the same pattern. Each time I would confess my sin to The Lord, say I was sorry, and promise to never do it again, but was I really sorry? Was I merely experiencing an emotional response to feeling bad about being convicted? It turns out that I have been practicing false repentance the entire time.

Repentance is defined as the sincere, active process of acknowledging wrongdoing, feeling genuine remorse (Godly sorrow), and committing to a ‘180-degree’ change in behaviour, mindset and direction away from sin toward God. Looking at this definition, it’s clear that what I was doing surely felt like repentance, but wasn’t. Let’s take the first part of the definition: “sincere, active process of acknowledging wrongdoing.” The important words here are “sincere” and “active.” I had become fluent in Christianese and was able to spin a narrative that sorta kinda sounded like accountability but was vague enough to exclude how my choice to ignore the Holy Spirit was a major contributor to my stunted spiritual growth. I would say things like “Oh, the Lord is carrying me through a season of strengthening my faith”, sounds nice and generic, doesn’t it? What it doesn’t reveal is a significant period of willfully not having quiet time with the Lord. Speaking in honest terms would, in fact, reveal that I had opened the door to distractions and allowed strongholds a pathway to create distance between The Lord and myself.

The second part of the definition mentions feeling “genuine remorse (Godly sorrow)”. This was the revelation that gave me the biggest gut punch. I would definitely feel sorrowful after the Holy Spirit convicted me about a particular sin. This wasn’t Godly sorrow though, at least not as Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 7:10 – “For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.” Godly sorrow leads to a change of heart, born of love for God; worldly sorrow is all about self-pity, bitterness, and a lack of real change. I had to ask myself, do I love to engage in the same patterns of sin more than I love Jesus? Under normal circumstances, I would try to run from that question, but the Holy Spirit held me down and forced me to look in the mirror. I had to confront my hypocrisy and be honest with myself.

The third part of the definition speaks about “committing to a ‘180-degree’ change in behaviour, mindset and direction away from sin toward God.” Do you see that word committing? It seems like such a simple word, but it’s actually maybe the most important part of the whole definition. Committing requires moving beyond intention to active, consistent, and often difficult steps towards a new behaviour or mindset. The thing is, I had grown too accustomed to things being easy and on my terms. What the Holy Spirit was asking me here was, how willing was I to give up the things that stood in the way of that commitment? Was I willing to walk away from situations the Holy Spirit instructed me to leave? Was I willing to block and delete those contacts from my phone? Was I willing to uninstall that social media app? Was I willing to risk revealing my online activity to my discipler so he would see every time my devices accessed content I wasn’t supposed to? Was I willing to go home after the social club meetings instead of following the guys to the bar right after? Repentance comes at a price. Was I saying that the price of repentance was more than the price Jesus paid for my soul? This isn’t about performing for God, it’s about turning to Him for real, and letting that turn produce real fruit.

After looking in the mirror, I had to admit I was lying to myself. How sorry could I be if I kept fanning the flames of temptation? How repentant was I if I kept ignoring all the exits the Holy Spirit provided? Talk about taking God’s grace and mercy for granted. One thing we can learn from the Bible is that grace and mercy have limits. God’s grace is not something to use as cover for compromise. God is a loving God, but He is also a just God. God is patient, but He also disciplines His children and calls us to come into alignment with His will.

This led me to prayerfully reflect, asking the Lord to search my heart and reveal all the areas where I was pretending to hate sin but was truly too comfortable to give it up. I asked the Lord to help me truly die to myself daily. My morning prayer is now simply “Jesus, I am yours, have your way”. Thank you, Lord, for such a harsh but well-needed rebuke. Guide me, Lord, as I seek to love you better each day