Lectionary Calendar
Friday, March 29th, 2024
Good Friday
There are 2 days til Easter!
Attention!
Tired of seeing ads while studying? Now you can enjoy an "Ads Free" version of the site for as little as 10¢ a day and support a great cause!
Click here to learn more!

Daily Devotionals
Music For the Soul
Devotional: May 15th

Resource Toolbox

SORROW ACCORDING TO GOD

And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin. - 2 Samuel 12:13

In 2 Corinthians 8:10 the Apostle Paul takes it for granted that a recognition of my own evil and a consequent penitent-regretfulness lies at the foundation of all true Christianity Now, I do not want to insist upon any uniformity of experience in people, any more than I should insist that all their bodies should be of one shape or of one proportion. Human lives are infinitely different, human dispositions are subtly varied; and because both one and the other are never reproduced exactly in any two people, therefore the religious experience of no two souls can ever be precisely alike.

We have no right to ask - and much harm has been done by asking - for an impossible uniformity of religious experience. You can print off as many copies as you like, for instance, of a drawing of a flower, on a printing press, and they shall all be alike, petal for petal, leaf for leaf, shade for shade; but no two hand-drawn copies will be so precisely alike, still less will any two of the real buds that blow on the bush there. Life produces resemblance with differences; it is machinery that makes facsimiles.

So we insist on no pedantic or unreal uniformity; and yet, whilst leaving the widest scope for divergences of individual character and experience, and not asking that a man all diseased and blotched with the leprosy of sin for half a lifetime, and a little child that has grown up at its mother’s knee, " in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," and "so has been saved innocent of much transgression," shall have the same experience, - yet Scripture, as it seems to me, and the nature of the case do unite in asserting that there are certain elements which, in varying proportions indeed, will be found in all true Christian experience, and of these an indispensable one - and in a very large number, if not in the majority of cases, a fundamental one - is this which Paul calls "godly sorrow."

Surely a reasonable consideration of the facts of our conduct and character point to that as the attitude that becomes you and me! Does it not? I do not charge you with crimes, as the law interprets them. I do not suppose that many who read these lines are living in flagrant disregard of the elementary principles of common every-day morality. There are some, no doubt. There are, no doubt, unclean men; there are some who eat and drink more than is good for them habitually; there are, no doubt, men and women that are living in avarice and worldliness, and things that the ordinary consciences of the populace point to as faults and blemishes. But I appeal to the so-called respectable people, that can say: "I am not as other men are, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican." I come to you, and I have this one question to put to you: Looking at your character all round, in the light of the purity and righteousness and love of God, how say ye - "guilty or not guilty," sinful or not sinful?

Be honest with yourself, and the answer will not be far to seek.

Subscribe …
Get the latest devotional delivered straight to your inbox every week by signing up for the "Music For the Soul" subscription list. Simply provide your email address below, click on "Subscribe!", and you'll receive a confirmation email from us. Follow the instructions in the email to confirm your subscription to this list.
adsfree-icon
Ads FreeProfile