Confession

Regret/Remorse -- Judas

Repentance -- Peter

Sin (any sin, no matter what else we call it) is the exchange of God's glory for vileness.

Hosea 9:11 - When God's glory is exchanged for sin, the result is fruitlessness.

Hosea 9:10 - you become like the sin you persist in; you become detestable and loathsome like the sin you love.

Hosea 5:4 - the spirit of that sin continues -- e.g. the golden calf led to centuries of idolatry.

Hosea 6:11 - we become slaves to the misery brought on by our own sin.

Ezra 10:10 - not exchanging God's glory for sin but wanting a mixture of both; wanting God's glory and His gifts while holding on to sin. Using our very God-given gifts and abilities to sin against Him.

Hosea 13:3 - We have become mist, chaff, smoke -- useless and offensive.

Jeremiah 2:19 - Woe! We have forsaken the Lord, become indifferent to Him and the fear of Him is not in us.

Jeremiah 16:12 - you walk after the stubbornness of your own evil heart, so that you do not obey ME.

Amos 2:8 - you sit in the house of God, in daring contempt of HIM!

Malachi 1:6-9, 14 - Where is My honour, where is the reverent fear due Me, you who despise My Name by your hypocrisy, you cheating deceivers?

Jeremiah 4:14 - Wash my heart; how long will iniquitous and

grossly offensive thoughts lodge within me?

Jeremiah 6:19 - The evil is the result of our own wicked thoughts

schemes and devices.

Eventually God gives us up to our sin; He removes the

restraints regarding persistent sin.

Romans 1:24-32, Isaiah 64:7 - God gave them up; He delivered us into

the consuming power of our iniquities. In the righteous

revelation of God's wrath, He withdraws His restraint against

sin and its consequences, and evil begins to spread. There

comes a time when God says, "You want your own god, your own

sin? okay, you've got it with all the consequences."

Remorse/regret could be merely crying over spilt milk or

being sorry that I'm found out. The awful hurt is just to my

pride because I don't want to face the reality of actually

being that kind of a person.

Hosea 14:2 - Acknowledge that what God says about you is true.

Haggai 1:12 - Listen to, and obey the voice of the Lord our God;

not vaguely or partly but completely.

Jeremiah 2:5-6 - What is there about God that would make my

thoughts go far from Him, to go after imaginations of

emptiness, falseness and futility; and thereby become

fruitless and worthless? And so fill my mind with wickedness

that I forget about and presume upon all God's benefits?

Hosea 11:12 - you are not yet steadfast with God.

Hosea 10:12 - Seek the Lord till He comes. TAKE THE TIME!

Haggai 2:16-18 - Consider, through all that time, harvests have

not fulfilled expectations. Return to Me and from this day

onward, I will bless you.

Hosea 14:4-5 - Mercy, forgiveness, fruitfulness.

Haggai 2:12-13 - holiness is NOT infectious -- but --

unholiness IS infectious.

Joel 2:12-13 - Therefore also now, says the Lord, turn and

keep on coming to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with

weeping and with mourning, until every hindrance is removed

and the broken fellowship is restored. Rend your hearts and

not your garments, and return to the Lord your God, for He is

gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in

loving-kindness, and He revokes His sentence of evil when His

conditions are met.

Isaiah 58:6 - Fasting includes breaking every enslaving yoke;

not only those I put on others, but all of them in my own

life.

Isaiah 58:9 - Take away from your midst every form of false,

harsh, unjust and wicked speaking.

Jeremiah 2:16 - Why don't I learn? The broken cisterns have never

helped or satisfied in the past, so why turn to them again?

Repentance includes horror, heartbreak, a radical change of

mind so as to determine never again to allow sin to usurp

God's glory. Jeremiah 2:11-12 - Lord, in Thy mercy, cause me to

be astounded and appalled, to be shocked and shrivel up with

horror at my offence against the holiness of God, because of

my forsaking abundant, life-giving water for the stagnant

acid of poison.

MY DESIRE

(1) for such a revelation of God's holiness that the

slightest sin in thought, word or deed, would be utterly

loathsome to me.

(2) for such precious, personal, satisfying intimacy in the

depth of my heart with G0D, that it would cause me intense

sorrow to grieve Him in any way.

Psalms 36:7-9 - to feast on the abundance of Your house, to drink

at the stream of Your pleasures, because with You is the

fountain of life and in Your light we see light.