Godly Grief

For Godly grief produces a repentance not to be regretted and leading to salvation, but worldly grief produces death. For consider how much diligence this very thing- this grieving as God wills- has produced in you: what a desire to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what deep longing, what zeal, what justice! In every way you showed yourselves pure in this matter. 2 Cor 7:10,11

Paul was referring to the Corinthians response to his letter of rebuke he wrote after 1 Corinthians. This letter appears to be lost, yet some think the last part of this letter is that letter as Paul again changes his tone to that of rebuke in chapter 10.

I found 1 Corinthians severe enough, yet the Corinthians had struggled because a false apostle came along and was convincing the Corinthians to reject Paul's apostleship.

How hard it would be to run a church from a distance? Unless there was good solid leadership in the church it would constantly have problems. I am grateful for good leadership. My ex-husband and I had planted a church in a place called Wyong and it was going well when my husband felt God calling us back to Tamworth, my home town. To find a good man to take over was hard and in fact the man who did saw the church dissipate as he was not a strong leader. At the time our associate had marital problems and was unable to take the reins.

When we planted the church here in Tamworth and had to hand it over through our own crisis we had good people second in command to give it to. Having both examples I can say that raising up leaders through the church is best.

Even churches under good leaders have people who agitate and complain. Most often the work most done in a church is handling difficult people. The challenge is encouraging the congregation while cleansing the unrest. This was Paul's problem.

Genuine repentance, when found, is a joy. It releases the one caught in sin and brings joy to the one bringing discipline. For myself I seek repentance, genuine repentance because there was a time in my life when I did not know it. Genuine repentance is a true gift from God. Amen!