“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly grief produces death.” (2 Corinthians 7:10)
The kingdom is here and not yet fully known. There is still sin and its futility woven into its fabric. When Jesus comes, all will be made new. But we are not there yet. Although sin has no ultimate power over us, we at times fall into temptation and sin, like wayward sheep, foolishly trusting our own intuition at times or the next shiny, new object, or a devious, moving squirrel.
Ultimately, all our sins are against God, and thankfully, the Lord has already forgiven us when we trust in the work of Christ. When we unwisely choose foolish rebellion against the One who truly loves us, we ought to experience “godly grief,” rather than “worldly grief.” Now, godly grief is different from worldly grief because of its source. Are you grieving because your sin is hindering your relationship with God, or are you grieving the loss of your relationship with the world? If you grieve because you do not want to hurt God and you love him, you will want to change. Otherwise, if you continue in sin, you will die.
Take for example, if you loved your spouse but then mistakenly hurt him or her, you would want to change your actions to avoid repeating this mistake. Of course, out of habit, you might occasionally struggle to do this, but this is vastly different compared to feeling sad over the loss of surf time, just because you feel obligated to spend time with your spouse. If you were to choose the ocean over your spouse, your relationship with your spouse dies more and more, until there is no return. So please reconsider the value of your relationship with God: All the sacrifices in the world do not make sense unless genuine love fuels them.
In conclusion: Our God loves us greatly, so let us return to him, to our heavenly Father who waits with open arms. Do not be surprised! Of course, the gospel is the key to repentance and salvation. The good news about this momentary sadness of potentially grieving God is that it will lead to repentance – your desires changing – and this will lead you deeper and further into salvation. This is how our loving Father designed the gospel to work in our lives.