Being Sincere in our Sorrow

As a child I did  something horrible! I did it several times. I took what wasn't mine. Things for which others worked hard! I walked into a friend's house, opened his money box which he had shown only to me, and took part of his money, This sin was two-fold: stealing and betraying! Illicit gain is usually both, but add to that the third wrong: I disobeyed God!

Exodus 20:15 "Thou shalt not steal."
Matthew 22:39b "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
John 14:15 "If ye love me, keep my commandments."

It's obvious that anytime one breaks any commandment several more are broken and if we are guilty of breaking one, we as well have broken them all! For my theft I was a renegade. I was not to be contained by the commands of a distant God. My goal was to please myself! It was to "me" that I knelt at that altar. I was my own idol!

 Exodus 20:3 "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

Sure I still believed in God, even as a child, but I put "ME" before "GOD"!

Later on in life I worked at a service station. My boss told me that I could repair if I chose to. At the start I repaired and put the money in the cash register, Then Satan's deception kicked in. He said "You don't have to do that work so it's okay that you put part of it in the register and keep some!" I listened to him because I rationalized. Later on Satan used my sin against me. "You can have all the money. It's all yours because you did all the work!" I proceeded to listen to the adversary. I began to pocket 100% of the money. It wasn't much, but amount doesn't matter! Jesus was sold out for 30 pieces of silver. Perhaps that's why God hates theft so much! It's ill-gotten gain.

Jump ahead to 2007. This sin always weighed on me! Because God loves me and forgave me, he still allowed me to feel guilt. Why? Because I had not made restitution!

Exodus 22:12 "And if it be stolen from him, he shall make restitution unto the owner thereof."

Before we can be forgiven and the slate wiped clean "sorrow" must be sincere. It's easy to feel bad because a person did wrong, but "sorrow" is contrition enough to make things right to those who were wronged. Repenting is seeking God's forgiveness, but restitution is seeking forgiveness of those wronged and is a measure of just how sorrowful a sinner is!

Restitution is making wrongs right. It's more than replacing what was stolen. It's admitting the sin and seeking forgiveness from the other. As a final measure, what was taken is to be returned!

Since I had taken a small amount years before, I could easily give that amount back. It would be an insincere measure of my sorrow because taking what I took would be easy. Money has time value! What I owed the man grew over time. I was led to repay him 500%. That was a sacrifice for me even at that time, However, I received forgiveness from the man who was then 86 years old, then shook his hand and returned what was his with interest. It was me who got the blessing! Guilt was removed from my shoulders. My repentance was closed. My sorrow led to restitution.

Before we move on, let me mention one more incident. I needed a part for my furnace. I put it in my pocket at work and walked all the way to the door. Almost there I remembered God's word. I was stealing! I immediately walked back and put it in its place. Satan spoke to me then as he had before! He said "It's a gigantic corporation. To take that relay does not hurt anybody!". I replied to him, "Liar!", and returned the relay. I had been severely tempted, but rejected Satan's deception. Guilt, the tool of the Holy Spirit, made me consider what I was about to do! Guilt is a good thing. It keeps us from being psychopathic sinners because they are without remorse. Those who don't feel guilt are called reprobate!

My restitution was not of me. God is not proud of me even for making things right. My restitution was merely obedience to him, and even that act was as filthy rags to him. What pleased God was that a sinner such as I still cared what God's will is! He looked at my heart and considered it's condition. It was still malleable and he likes that!

When I stole from my employer and was about to steal from another, I rationalized my actions: "It's just a little amount and it's a big company", I thought. Rationalizing is Satan's method of getting us to justify wrong. It's how Satan twists our mind to do what's wrong. That gift of rationalizing is called "reason" and that's what our forebears got at the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil". We know the difference now, since we're no longer innocent of sin, but with that knowledge of right and wrong, we are weasels. We use reason to make wrongs right in our own mind. Rather than seeking to please God by standing under his tree, we stand under our own. We use our own devices to appease our god, "Me" and all the while say "I'm okay with the One True God!"

Restitution is not always monetary. We can repay hate by doing acts of love. We can repeal what we've coveted by being generous to others. We can cancel out our the use of God's name in vain, by praising him with the same words. We can make amends for lying by always being truthful. We can quit killing  others by loving all God's creation and doing what God commands! Yes, even "hating" a person is killing him or her! What we do in our minds is the same sin as what we do with our bodies.

Hopefully the reader gets the point. As Christians, change is required. It's easy to "believe", but "change" is the hard part. "Change" is a measure of how much we love God! He tells us that!

John 14:15 "If ye love me, keep my commandments."