Guidance Light

Your Remorse Isn't Enough

• Jonathan Cordero • Season 2 • Episode 2

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Have you ever wondered if feeling sorry is enough to bring about true change? Join us on Guidance Light as we unravel the crucial difference between repentance and remorse. Today, we promise to clarify why genuine repentance, involving a heartfelt commitment to God's will and a change in behavior, is essential for spiritual growth. Together, we'll seek God's guidance and forgiveness through prayer, and reflect on insights from our Kingdom Men Bible study on discipleship and leadership.

Embark with us on an insightful exploration of the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, where we'll unpack themes of temptation, remorse, and repentance. Discover how this ancient narrative mirrors our daily struggles and emphasizes that while remorse is a feeling of regret, true transformation comes from repentance—a profound change of mind leading to righteousness. We'll discuss how acknowledging our wrongdoings and committing to change aligns us with God's grace, steering clear of superficial repentance.

Lastly, be inspired by the powerful journey of Job, who moves from immense suffering and remorse to genuine repentance and transformative change. Through personal reflection and prayer, we'll encourage you to identify your struggles, admit your wrongdoings, and seek God's healing and wisdom. Don't miss our heartfelt invitation to submit prayer requests, as we assure you of divine support and the constant presence of Jesus. Tune in for a deep, meaningful conversation about the freedom that comes from true repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

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Jon:

Welcome to Guidance Light, where God is always number one. We talk about faith, spirituality, the battles of the flesh and the spirit, but mainly we are here for you to walk in Christ. We know how hard life can be, we know the ups and the downs, but we are a family in Jesus and we are here for you. My name is John and this is Guidance Light, and we are here for you. My name is John and this is Guidance Light. Welcome back, welcome back, guidance Light family, to episode two of season two. I'm honored to be your host. My name is John and we're going to be diving into what the differences are between repentance and being remorseful. See, a lot of times we kind of get the topic confused, and it's something that it's inherently important to understand what the differences are. See, you can be sorry for something that you got caught, or you can be truly sorry for something and make a difference. So we're going to dive into talking about that today and I want to say thank you to everybody who's joining us, from across the world we're talking about, from different countries, from the USA to Ireland, to Sweden, to India, china. Welcome, because God's word is for everybody, not just for a select group of people. The news of salvation, the good news of salvation through the Gospels, is there for salvation to everybody, for Jesus Christ died on the cross for all of us before you were even born. He paid your debt in full, and that debt was to wipe you away of all your sins and all your iniquities. So thank you, guys, for joining us and I look forward to this episode. Stay tuned throughout the whole episode and I pray that God gives you a message through this, because, again, revelation and understanding come from the Holy Spirit and nothing else. Understanding comes from the Holy Spirit, from God himself. Wise are the ones that chase the word of God, because it reveals who they are on the inside. So let's go ahead and bow our heads, let's pray and let's open up today. So let's go ahead and bow our heads, let's pray and let's open up today, father. I come to you today, lord, dirty and full of sin, as always, lord, because I am imperfect. I recognize that I sin, sometimes without even realizing it, and I ask for your forgiveness, lord, I understand full heartedly that the words that I speak today come from you, father. They're not mine, and I pray that the message that you're giving touches the heart of those who are hearing it, lord, touches their hearts so much that they go and they spread the news to others, so that the fire that you ignite in their souls and in their hearts is able to light others on fire. Let it be like a sickness that spreads in a good way, because, father, we seek you earnestly in all that we do. In Jesus' holy name. I pray Amen.

Jon:

So, guys, thank you so much again for joining us. We're going to be talking a little bit about something that touched my heart. So I recently well, actually, it was last night that I was in a Bible study with a group of a wonderful group of men from my church and the group is called Kingdom Men, where we had a discipleship leadership training, where we're taking turns in leading the Bible study and one of our good friends named Anthony. He has a wonderful social media platform where he talks about things that you run into every day, that you don't even pay attention to, and how it translates to something that God may be wanting to talk to you about. So if you haven't seen his channel, if you haven't subscribed or follow or see any of his videos, go to wwwguidance-lightcom. I'm going to be putting a link to his channels on my website just so you guys could follow up, because, at the end of the day, we were all working together for one main reason, and that's to bring everyone closer to God, to fulfill our commission in God. See, I'm talking a little bit fast today because I could feel the pull of the Holy Spirit dragging me on to say hey, this is what you're going to talk about today because someone needs to hear it, whether it's me myself that needs to hear it out loud, or whether it's you on the other side of this audio recording that needs to hear it.

Jon:

But regardless, let's talk quickly about what a commission is. See, god has a purpose for us. We've all heard this before. God has a purpose that says, hey, you were born to do X, y, z, and a lot of times throughout our life we're striving to find what that purpose is. We don't quite understand it, we don't get it, we doubt it, or maybe we're just scared to do it because we're afraid of the repercussions of being ridiculed or mocked. But we all have a commission in the Lord and you see it all the time. You know, you go to churches and you see people who are volunteering their time to be able to help the mission.

Jon:

Again, the mission is to reach those who are trying to find God, those who don't know who God is, because there is salvation, there is joy, there is happiness. Everything that the world is lacking right now Is found through the blood of Christ, through Jesus Christ, and the beautiful thing behind it all is that when you find it, you find salvation and acceptance. You get to experience that joy forevermore. See, it's like think of a little kid when they're going outside and playing and they find something really fun, they go and they tell all their friends and all their friends start doing it and they all find it really fun. See, that's what a Christian does. They find the joy in Jesus Christ and they go and they spread it. Because it's joy, it's natural joy, that which we spend all of our time saving up our resources to go on vacation to find a shred of joy in our lives. God provides it in spades. He gives you purpose, he fulfills that void that we wake up a lot of times asking ourselves hey, what am I supposed to do today? What is this really? It Is this what life is all about. This is what God fulfills. Now I'm going to go back quickly here and I apologize, it kind of went off on a tangent, but when you feel it, you feel it. My friend Anthony here.

Jon:

He led the group last night and he spoke about how Satan in the Garden of Eden disguised himself as a snake in order to draw Eve into falling into temptation. For Eve to say that everything that God has given us because if you read the book of Genesis you'll notice that God gave mankind dominion on earth the devil, or God, just gave him one rule Don't eat out of the tree of knowledge, don't, don't do it, don't touch it. You can do anything else you want in the world. I've given you dominion over everything, but don't eat out of this one tree. And then here comes the devil, dressed as a snake, saying if God gave you dominion, then why won't he let you eat from the tree of life or the tree of knowledge? I mean, you can do everything else, right, why can't you do this?

Jon:

And he started to kind of nag at Eve and started presenting temptation. And that's where we all fall every single day, myself included. I'm not exempt. I'm not exempt. We all have temptation of some sort, whether it's temptation to go buy something materialistic. Whether it's temptation to lie, whether it's temptation to sin, whether it's temptation to fall into lust, to watch things that you shouldn't be watching, to be abusive to not only physical but substances, we all fall into it. There's no perfect human being. The only one who is perfect has died and risen again and lives with his father in heaven, and his name is Jesus Christ. But aside from that, there is nobody here on earth that is perfect.

Jon:

So we went through this Bible study, through this Bible study, and the topic of temptation came up. But then he asked a very, very important question. He said how do you think Adam and Eve felt when they sinned, when they went against, when they disobeyed the word of God, god who had given them everything Dominion over earth, over the creatures of the sky and the land and the sea, over everything, and yet they still disobeyed? How do you think they felt? Well, the men across the group all shared their experiences. I said fearful, fearful of the repercussions of the lord. But he had it written down, the word remorse.

Jon:

Now, for those of us that don't know what remorse is or at least we know what it is but we don't know what the literal definition is? It says remorse is a strong feeling of regret and anguish over sin. It's like slowing down or taking an off ramp, but not actually turning around and going in another direction. See, before I read this, the Holy Spirit yesterday spoke to me the moment we started talking about the word remorse and he said remorse isn't enough, guys, I want you to stop for a second and I want you to think about that. Remorse isn't enough, guys. I just read you what the definition was that it's a strong feeling of regret and anguish. You can feel bad about doing something you weren't supposed to. Man, I feel bad that I was abusing this physical situation. Man, I feel bad that I was giving into sin or I was giving into lust. But yet remorse isn't enough. It's not enough to change your direction, because remorse isn't going to change who you are. Remorse isn't going to change your actions. Remorse just means you feel sorry for doing it, but not that you're going to stop from doing it.

Jon:

But that's where God's faithfulness and grace comes in. And then you hear the wonderful word that we hear through salvation how to gain salvation, and that's through repentance. See, we are. We can find remorse in disobedience, as I mentioned in the last episode that we are all disobedient. When we're disobedient, we know we did something wrong. And a lot of times when we know we did something wrong, we hide from it. We stop answering calls, we stop talking to somebody, we stop going around this situation, we stop using this item, all because we are remorseful for something that may have happened. But repentance is God's saving grace. It's the action that you take when you are remorseful and that you do want to make a change, that you do want to walk towards Christ. See, repentance is a change of mind that leads to a change in life. It involves reviewing your own actions, feeling regret and committing to actions that show a change for the better.

Jon:

Repentance is turning from sin and going towards righteousness, turning away from wicked attitudes and actions to turning towards righteous ones, attitudes and actions to turning towards righteous ones. So I say that remorse is required, because you do have to feel sorry. You have to have what they now say come to Jesus moment. You have to say man, I messed up. But that alone is not enough. You need to admit to what you're doing and say I don't want to do this anymore. My life is not about this. These chains that are holding me are going to be broken. In the name of Jesus Christ, I will find salvation through the blood of Jesus. I will find salvation through the blood of Jesus and I repent of that which is dragging me down, I repent of that which is making me wicked. I repent of that which of what I've done. Remorse alone is not enough to find the grace that God is freely giving.

Jon:

Guys, this topic is a topic that is it could be so controversial, because the thing is this is that we can feel remorse and go to church on Sunday, walk into church feeling remorse, praise God, repent right there, and then, on church, acknowledge Jesus and God with our lips, walk out of church and deny him by our actions. So, did you really feel remorse, did really repent, if you repented in one moment but went back to your life in the next? That is how an unbelieving world or, I'm sorry, a believing world can find something so unbelievable. That is a number one cause of atheism is christians who acknowledge jesus with their lips but deny them by their actions. See, in the bible, it talks about men that experience remorse. It talks about men and women and their road, their path to redemption and repentance.

Jon:

I know that I've spoken about the book of Job so many times in other episodes and this is by far one of my favorite books in the Bible, and the reason why I say this is because it's so relatable. This book itself is something that everybody can relate to in some way, shape or form, because job gets thrown everything the world has to give him. He gets thrown things that nobody wants to experience. As a matter of fact, in chapter three, right at the very start, job's it has already been going through all sorts of things. The enemy has been tempting him, taking things away, killing his kids, taking away his money, having his wife curse him. He's gone through ailments, through actual physical health issues, and it says in chapter 3, verse 1, it says after this job began to speak and cursed the day he was born, he said may the day I was born perish. And the rest of chapter 3 goes on to sit to, to fuel this feeling that he starts out with. He starts damning that of which was given to him, which was life. He starts damning the people who nursed him to grow into a strong man.

Jon:

But throughout this book Job has an encounter with God and God talks to him. God talks to him even after everything he's going through. He's cursed his own name. He's like why did you let me be born, god? But at this moment in time, when remorse became repentance, he went from cursing his name for regretting everything that's ever happened to him, for having shame on what he said towards God and towards himself, and he gave it to the one who created him and he said you want to know what? You're right. You know more than I. You've created everything around me. You are God alone. So blessed are you, god, who gives and takes away, and that's important to understand, guys. So blessed are you, god, who gives and takes away and that's important to understand, guys.

Jon:

That repentance is the core of our walk with Christ. It all starts from a place of reflection, of remorsefulness, to say I have done wrong. That is the prayer, that is the acceptance into salvation. That is where you say God, I know that I have sinned, I know that I'm. You say god, I know that I have sinned, I know that I'm a sinner, I know that I'm wicked, but I know that you are god above all, and I know that you sent your son, jesus christ, on the cross, to pay for my debt of sin in full. Through his blood. He endured atrocities because he loved me. This is where we turn that remorsefulness into a moment of repentance, where we change our lives to walk in Christ. A lot of times people say, oh, he became Christian and he just changed who he was. Yes, guys, that is the point. That is the point when you get touched by the Holy Spirit, when you get saved, you begin to walk for Christ, towards towards christ, to be more like him, so that you can infect others with the same love that he that they're experiencing.

Jon:

I invite you to give it a shot. There is freedom in surrender. There is freedom in surrender. There is freedom in admission.

Jon:

You look at all these groups, all these AA meetings, all these meetings where people are addicted to, whether it's physical ailments, whether it's substance ailments, whether it's whatever it is. And what is the first step Is admit to what was wrong. Well, god is a cure, he is a healer. There is nothing that he cannot do. There is nothing he cannot heal. He spoke life into existence. Give God the admission, show him the remorse and accept that he is your salvation and you will begin to see that chains are broken. That which addicts you will be gone. That which holds you back will flee. That which holds you back will flee, because he is God above all. He is a king of kings and the God of gods. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. There is nothing that he cannot accomplish.

Jon:

So I give you a task to think about, to ponder on as you tackle your week Is find yourself on what you were struggling with. Bring it up in a moment of solitude. While you're driving your car to work, while you're sitting in your bed at night, while you're making dinner, it doesn't matter where it is Stand, kneel, sit, do whatever it is you want, but ask yourself what is it that's holding me back? What is it that I'm addicted to? What is it that's stopping me from following Christ the way he has me? What is my commission for God? How can I infect others? What can I do as a person today to help others feel the joy of salvation?

Jon:

Ask yourself and then ask God to help you through it. Tell yourself, god, I need you, I need your guidance, I need your revelation, I need your wisdom. God, I need you Because I just like remorse am not enough. Give God your time and he will guide you. Ask for revelation and he will give, for the Bible says that which you ask for shall be given. Trust in God's timing. Let your remorsefulness turn into something that will last you in eternity through repentance.

Jon:

And maybe maybe you haven't taken that step, maybe you don't know god, who god is, maybe you have that remorsefulness but you haven't had a moment of true repentance that you haven't asked from a humble heart. God, I am sorry for what I've done. I am sorry for what I do, not necessarily what I've done, but what I continually do. I don't know how to get away from it. It's like, no matter what I do, I always end up back in that same spot.

Jon:

Well, it takes courage, strength to admit your wrongdoings. It takes effort, it takes everything you've got to give your life to Jesus. It's easy to go with a crowd. It's easy to go with a crowd, but it's hard to walk the straight and narrow away from where everyone else says Give your life to Christ with a simple prayer. Now I'm going to pray us out, and after I'm done praying us out, I'm also going to say the prayer of acceptance. So bow your heads with me and let's give God the honor and glory that he deserves, because we have all fallen short from the grace of God, father.

Jon:

I come to you today, lord, grateful that you care enough about us that you sent your son, jesus Christ, to pay the debt of our sins, so that we could find salvation and eternal life through your son. Thank you for caring about us, lord. We're sorry that we don't follow you the way that you ask us to every single day. Lord, we are regretful that we have done actions in the past that have been a form of disobedience to you. Father, we ask that you take us and you guide us down the right path. Lead us to being more righteous in all that we do, so that we can help others find who you are. In Jesus' holy name, I pray amen Now, with heads still closed and eyes, or, I'm sorry, with eyes still closed and heads bowed.

Jon:

If you haven't accepted Jesus Christ, if you don't have a relationship with him, or perhaps you did and you've fallen away, feel free to say this prayer with me. God, I know that I'm a sinner. I know that I have sinned and that I have continually done so. I know that you sent your son, jesus Christ, to earth to die on the cross for my sins, and I repent of my sins. Today, at this very moment, I want to turn my life to you, lord. Take my life, be my Lord and Savior and guide me so that I may walk in your light. In Jesus' holy name, I pray Amen.

Jon:

If you said that prayer with me, I want to say welcome to God's family. I always love quoting the book of Luke, chapter 15, verse 7, and it says I tell you in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who don't need repentance. I am proud of the decisions that you took today and welcome you into God's family. Obviously, I'm welcoming you into Guidance Life family. That's what we're all here about to worship God, to follow God in our daily walk and the struggles that we encounter. So thank you so much for being a part of this channel.

Jon:

Do me a favor, right, and do yourself a favor. Help more people join the Guidance Life family. Share this channel or share this family. Share this channel or share this episode. Share the channel. Share the website wwwguidance-lightcom. Tell more people about the love of Jesus Christ. Tell them about the difference between being remorseful and having repentance in your life. Tell them about the gift of salvation and the wonders and joy that come from it. Infect the world with the love of Jesus Christ and know that your commission will begin to be fulfilled in his name. Thank you, guys, so much for everything you guys are doing for this channel wouldn't grow to where it's growing to without your help.

Jon:

We are airing in multiple countries and I am honored that God is spreading his love and his word throughout the masses across the world. It's not just what's here at home, not just with friends and family, but with colleagues, with anybody who is willing to listen. The word of God is for all of us. So thank you so much. I look forward to doing these episodes more and more and having you guys as part of this, of this ministry. Thank you so much again, guys. If you could visit wwwguidance-lightcom or follow us on our socials like Tik TOK and Instagram and whatever other socials my wife runs. I really don't keep up with socials, but my wife does an amazing job and we've been reaching out hundreds and hundreds of people every single day with daily devotionals through those platforms. So thank you so much.

Jon:

If you need a prayer request submitted, go to our website and submit one and we'll be. I'll be more than happy to pray over you and your situation, your family or whatever it is that you're about to come against. Jesus has our backs every single day. Whether we realize it or not, he holds his hand on your shoulder when you're walking through the thick of it. All you have to do is believe and accept. This is John from Guidance Light. I will see you guys next episode. Love you guys. May God bless you Again. This is John signing out. May God bless you guys and keep you safe. I'll talk to you guys on the next episode.