MY ONLY REGRET

Should the Lord decide to continue working on me until September, I will be seventy years old this year. I have noticed that the older I get, the more I reflect upon the mistakes I have made in the past. Don't get me wrong, I am not overwhelmed by depression over the poor choices I have made, for that would be the ultimate in pride. That would mean that I somehow thought of myself as being "a better man that that." It would mean I have not yet come to realize that within me, apart from God, there is not now, nor has there ever been, anything good. God's Word says "there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Rom. 3:12).

Following my acceptance of Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I honestly believed I would no longer sin; that God had changed me into being a "good man." That lasted for exactly one hundred days. I had successfully resisted yielding to the many habits that had defeated me for so long. Then it happened! I succumbed to temptation and I was devastated! The first thing Satan threw at me was, "How can you be saved when you did that?" And to be quite honest, I did not disagree with him. I must not have been born again. I must still be lost!

Again, being honest, I do not remember how the Lord ministered to me during that time. What I do know now, is that it was then that He began teaching me that my salvation was 100% grace. I was a sinner in the past, a sinner then, and am still a sinner today. I began to understand that, like the Apostle Paul, I am nothing apart from the Spirit within me. Paul wrote:

"For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members" (Rom. 7:14-23).

My only regret is that I keep forgetting this, and when I sin, my pride keeps being disappointed in me. I find it incredible that after forty years of repeated reminders by my old nature raring its ugly self, I am still surprised! It is bad enough that others expect me to be perfect, without me thinking I should! Thank God for 1 John 3:2:

Beloved, now are we the sons of God,
And it doth not yet appear what we shall be:
But we know that, when He shall appear,
We shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.