What to Do When a Memory of Sin Paralyzes You

by Jason Meyer

I’ve been married for 19 years, and I have many happy memories with my wife. Cara is my best friend by far. We especially enjoy looking back and reliving some of our favorite dates together.

One treasured memory is the time I found out she once dreamed about being in the Air Force. By that point in our relationship, I had learned to plan dates we would both enjoy rather than dates only I would enjoy—no extra charge for that little piece of advice. One of my close friends was a pilot, and I asked him if he could take us flying. He delivered in a big way. He flew us to a nearby regional airport, I took her to a Mexican restaurant, and he flew us back. I have a picture of Cara and me standing next to the plane, and we both have beaming smiles. I love to look at that picture and relive the date.

Memories can be a precious gift that allow us to enjoy the same event multiple times. But our memories can also be a curse.

Curse of Memory

One of the most painful moments of my life came during premarital counseling. I tearfully told Cara (my fiancée at that time) about some of my past pornography usage. By God’s grace, porn was no longer a problem in my life, but it was an issue in my past. I wanted her to know the truth about my old struggle, and I earnestly desired her forgiveness for that sin. I will never forget seeing the pain etched on her face. She freely forgave me, but it was a heart-wrenching for both of us.

For several days, I struggled to apply the gospel to my situation. I wanted to beat myself up. I remembered the pain on Cara’s face, and I replayed it in my mind over and over. I raked myself over the coals again and again for the bad choices I’d made years before.

Don’t sit in your sin. Take it on a journey all the way back to the cross and see it nailed there.

Our memories can serve as a kind of time machine. The time machine of memory can be a good thing when we go back and replay the good times. It can help us enjoy a pleasant experience in exponential ways. But the time machine of memory becomes twisted when we use it to relive our past failures and punish ourselves multiple times for the same mistake. When we put our sins on repeat mode, we wince and groan over and over again because it triggers sharp pangs of guilt and shame. Our guilt brings past sins into the present and says, “Look, you made a mistake.” Then shame joins the conversation and adds, “Yes, and you are the mistake.”

Why do we torture ourselves by going back to places of failure in our memory banks? Why do we continue to push the play button and experience it all over again? We wish we could go back and erase our failures, but that’s not an option. We can’t seem to get over it, so we go over it in our minds again and again.

Embrace the Full Truth

Here’s the problem with the twisted time machine of memory. We travel back in time under the pretense of a half-truth. Yes, we sinned. No, sin should not be taken lightly. There is appropriate guilt and shame that flow from sin, but as Christians, we know that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). We can’t allow our past shames to cloud the fact that Christ has come.

Discouragement gets stuck in the half-truth that says, “Go back and see for yourself that you failed,” but we can take heart when we realize the full truth that our problem is not that we look back, but that we don’t look all the way back.

Yes, “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23)—but our debts have been paid. Don’t sit in your sin. Take it on a journey all the way back to the cross and see it nailed there. Then, and only then, will you be ready to move forward in the forgiving love of Christ.

Editors’ note:

This is an adapted excerpt from Don’t Lose Heart: Gospel Hope for the Discouraged Soul, published in partnership with Baker Books.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/memory-paralyzes-you/

Recipe for Repentance

Article by Josh Squires

There are fewer deceptions that are more confounding than that of false repentance. When someone pretends to confess and turn away from sin, but in the depths of his heart means only to appease anger and escape consequences, it leaves in its wake an especially sensitive kind of confusion and pain.

“Do they really mean it?” is a question that I’m asked frequently. My response is that I do not know for sure, and I am vulnerable to deception. However, genuine repentance tends to be more like mountains on the horizon than a pit on the path — that is, it tends to be easily discernible and not something for which you have to be on the lookout. The more you feel like you have to go find it, the less likely it is authentic.

Why Do We Repent?

“My bad.” Those words got me out of more trouble as a young man than any other two-word combination I can imagine. Guys especially have a tendency to think that repentance almost solely consists of admitting a fault. Once the fault has been admitted, even if in the most lexically concise way possible, the assumption is that everyone should just get over it and move on.

However, when repentance is given the short shrift, so is the relationship that is supposed to be repaired. Our repenting of sin is the first step toward rebuilding trust with those whom our sin has harmed or affected. If we seem irritated or rash in our repentance, then the wound which that sin created can stay open and become infected with bitterness.

More than that, the reason that we prioritize repentance is because our Lord and Savior tells us to (1 John 1:9). The gospel is on full display when we repent. Its light shines forth for us as we perceive our moment-to-moment need of a gracious Savior, and it penetrates into the painful darkness of others as it illuminates the route to restoration grounded in the good news of a holy God. As Tertullian once said, “I was born for no other end but to repent.”

The famous seventeenth century pastor Thomas Watson wrote a treatise on repentance with six “ingredients” to show us what genuine repentance looks like.

1. Sight of Sin

By this, Watson means that we rightly perceive ourselves as sinners. How often have you heard the phrase, “I know I’m not perfect but . . . ” which in nearly every circumstance means, “when it comes to this, I’m perfect!” Genuine repentance starts with the understanding that we are desperate sinners whose sin touches nearly everything we do (Romans 3:10). It means that we should not be surprised when we find it necessary to repent, nor should that exercise undo us.

2. Sorrow over Sin

This ingredient is the element of lament for our sin as we see its effect on ourselves, on others, and on God. As David cries, “The sacrifices of God are . . . a broken and contrite heart” (Psalm 51:17). This is the element which is most easily observed and therefore most often counterfeited. As Watson observes some are sorrowful “not because sin is sinful, but because it is painful.”

3. Confession of Sin

Again Watson writes, “Sorrow is such a vehement passion that it must vent. It vents itself at the eyes by weeping and at the tongue by confession.” Confession should focus on oneself and one’s own sin. It should not look to mitigate, excuse, rationalize, or blame. Genuine repentance takes ownership of the pain that our sin has caused both in its particulars and generalities.

While preferred that confession is always voluntary on the part of the penitent, it is not uncommon for confession to flow from the fact that the Lord has graciously let us be caught in our sinful ways. However, if confession results only from the times that we are involuntarily caught in our sin, then this is no repentance at all.

I cannot count the number of philanders, gossips, addicts, and gamblers whose confessions became a serial event — always confessing to exactly what they’d been caught doing and no more. Our confessions, while they do not have to go into exacting detail, must not leave grand portions of our sin concealed.

4. Shame of Sin

“Blushing is the color of virtue,” says Watson. All sin makes us guilty, and that guilt is only removed at the cost of the blood of God himself, who voluntarily took on flesh and lived a perfect life never once ceding to temptation, though tempted by the prince of lies himself. He voluntarily clothed himself in that very sin and took on the wrath of God — hell itself! — at Calvary. If that does not make us ashamed when we sin, nothing will! May there be in our communities of faith more blushing and less boasting when it comes to sin (Ezra 9:6).

5. Hatred of Sin

“Christ is never loved till sin is loathed.” Genuine repentance reflects something of God’s wrath. God’s anger burns at sin, and for those who do not trust in Christ alone for salvation, they will experience this firsthand upon death. It is not just a historical anger but an eternal one.

When we get angry at our own sin, we are reflecting something of God’s holiness and purity to those around. This hatred of sin in oneself, when genuine, is never too far from the surface. It usually only takes a little agitation to yield significant expression. When someone’s anger is focused primarily on others’ sins and not his own, it’s typically a sign that repentance is a mere performance.

6. Turning from Sin

Repentance means little if it does not result in reformation. This is the ingredient of repentance that takes the longest and can be the most excruciating for all involved. Will you raise your voice again in anger? Will you look at something inappropriate when no one else is around? Will you talk again about someone else’s flaws just so you can feel accepted?

Scripture tells us that we must not only repent but that we must also actively turn from the sins we commit (Ezekiel 14:6). If we repent without a sincere desire to keep from engaging in that same sin in the future, then one or more of the ingredients above are missing. That said, if we turn from sin in our own strength, we will fail. We will lose both the motivation and the energy for the fight that the conflict against sin requires of us. Instead, if we turn not to our own efforts but to God, we will find ourselves more and more refreshed by his grace and have the catalyst to see sin beaten.

Repentance is a key part of the Christian life. It never feels good — and if it does, you’re doing it wrong — but it is necessary. It’s what reminds us of our need for grace while displaying our growth in grace to the world around.

Josh Squires (@RevJASquires) serves as pastor of counseling and congregational care at First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina. He and his wife have five children.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/a-recipe-for-repentance