Have you ever been caught doing something wrong and immediately you say “I’m sorry”? Often this statement may follow,” you are only sorry because you got caught.” This is one area of my heart recently which I have been reflecting on in my own life. Are we genuinely sorry over the things we apologize for? Do I really care that I hurt/wronged someone else, or am I just sorry because it was noticed. I think more times than not, I am sorry because I have gotten ‘caught’.
I am sorry because it hurt our friendship. I am sorry because it made me look bad and I need to redeem my rep in that area now. I am sorry because it was immature of me, and I ‘should have’ done better. But am I genuinely sorry just because I care about them, and I was acting selfishly and not caring about the recipient and how he/she really felt?
One example from my life was when I first turned 16 and got my drivers license. I don’t know the law now, however in 2008 the first 6 months after you get your drivers license, it is illegal to drive anyone other than immediate family. Time and time again my mother reminded me of this rule and the fact that I better not be driving any friends around in this 6 month period. I lied and smiled and said the right things, but I thought the rule was dumb so I didn’t really care. Until one day, my dad saw me driving with my friend Alex in town. Once I got home, my mother was livid. I tried to downplay it and rationalize, but I knew I had been caught. I was grounded from going to a girl’s 16th birthday party that weekend (I had a crush on her). Not being able to go to her party really hurt me and I was so apologetic to my mother. I tried to apologize 100 times and smooth talk my way out with future promises and other tactics. However, I was really only sorry because it hurt me.
My relationship with God is often the same way. A lot of times I am only sorry for my sin when I feel that it hurts me. Sometimes, I’m sorry if it hurt others and what that could mean for our relationship. I’m very sorry and stressed, because I’m worried it just made me look bad and hurt my reputation. I’m also sometimes sorry because I want to be a leader and seen as mature. Oh… and I’m sorry because I disobeyed God.
Did you catch that? Do you see the order of my heart? So frequently I am stressed and grieved over my sins within the capacity that they foreseeingly affect ME negatively. But often times things I see as minuute or tedious do not really affect my heart, as long as no one else knows, and it won’t have negative reprocussions on me.
But What happened to being in love with Jesus? What happened to the prayer “break my heart for what breaks yours.” What happened to loving others like Christ, more than that, becoming like Christ! I can ask for all the outward accountability I want, but the ultimate accountability will have to come from my heart sincerely caring about God’s heart and our relationship. There is no altruism, no one does stuff for the greater good just ‘because’. If you follow the vine far enough back down the path leading to someone’s motives, you will find a big root of selfishness (in one way or another). This is to be expected because we are born into sin and selfishness. But, in Christ we are a new creation, in Christ we “are given a new heart.”
This is why Paul makes it so clear that after receiving Christ, it is a constant battle of sinful flesh versus the Holy Spirit inside of you. He says, “therefore I crucify myself daily”… John the baptist said, “I must decrease so He may increase.” It’s no secret. Even for non-Christians reading this, you can even see how obvious it is. Christians are selfish jerks typically just as often, if not more, as non-Christians. We are far from perfect. Daily I have a selfish nature trying to win the day, and daily I have to surrender that to the Lord and choose to fall in love with Him.
Several times the bible refers to David as “a man after God’s own heart.” I don’t believe there was anything extremely different about him than other leaders. Don’t get me wrong David is one of my hero’s, but I just believe David genuinely cared about God and obeying Him. So much so, that whenever David disobeyed (which he often did, and in big ways) he repented and was heart-broken until his relationship with God was reconciled.
Preachers can preach, teachers can teach, and church-going Christians can smile and say the right thing in public, but are we really desiring the heart of God? Or are we just wanting it to look like we are desiring the heart of God?
Here are some questions to help examine our hearts:
-What do we do when no one else is watching?
-How do we treat those closest to us?
-When we do sin, are we broken in repentance because of our relationship with God, or because we got caught?
John Wesley once said, “give me 100 men who fear nothing but sin, and love nothing but God, and we will shake the gates of Hell”
I’m mainly speaking to myself here, however, does our heart really break for what breaks God’s? Or are we just playing a game?
