Own It
From I Wish I Wudda
by Pastor Nave on June 14, 2015
“Own It” is the first segment this series called I Wish I Wudda, which focuses on managing our regrets with the Word of God. Everyone in life has regrets. We think about our regrets in one frame of mind: I wish I would have…
In our walk with God, our goal is to manage our current regrets. Regret-management helps us to eliminate future regrets (we know history will always repeat itself). Living for God is not just about “knowing better”—anyone can memorize the rules. But, living for God is applying the Word of God and then living by it. Scripture tells us to be doers of the Word and not just hearers (James 1:22–23).
Regret in its simplest form is something we knew, we saw, but we “didn’t.” We cannot undo our regrets in life as hard as we may try. We could have avoided them all together—we knew right and choose not to do it. If we choose to do wrong (when we know what’s right), it’s sin…pure and simple (James 4:17). Sin will always be at the root of every regret.
In order to have peace about our problem, we need to own our piece of the problem. We see our failures and say we were only partially responsible for them; we always try to blame them on other people, circumstances, and the like. We are dishonest about our regrets because we’re all related to Adam and Eve—and they invented regrets.
God wanted to bless His children, provide everything they needed, and to live in His presence (Genesis 1:28–2:25). Adam and Eve had one rule to abide by to stay away from guilt and shame, but they couldn’t obey this one rule. We look at them and think obedience to one rule would have been so easy, but in all honesty, we can’t keep our own rules, let alone God’s.
We need to own our part of our failure (the piece of the problem). We failed purely because we saw something good in the bad. We acted upon that “good” and found ourselves in regret. Eve looked upon what was bad (eating the fruit) and saw it was good (to be like a god) (Genesis 3:1–6). Just like Eve, we made our choice because it benefitted us. Instead of listening to God, and avoiding something that was bad, we earned something (sin) to manage for the rest of our life (Romans 5:12).
When people don’t manage their regrets, they have a tendency to hide. In the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, their eyes were open, and they realized they were naked. They decided to try to “hide” from God (Genesis 3:9–10). When Adam sinned, he realized his guilt and he didn’t want to face his Creator. It made more sense to Adam to run from God instead of run to the One who could help him.
God asked Adam “…Where art thou?” (Genesis 3:9, KJV). God will always come looking for us when we mess up because he wants to confront us. God knew that Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree, but God wanted Adam to confess. God wants us to take part in our regret. If we are to manage our regrets, we need to stop hiding, become honest with ourselves, take inventory of what we’ve done, realize it’s us, and ask for forgiveness!
Adam blamed Eve for putting him in his current circumstance (Genesis 3:12). He didn’t take responsibility for his sin (regret). When we start to blame others for our regrets, we restrict our future in God. Blaming others is a form of idolatry. We put our own interest first before allowing God to try to fix us. God came to Adam to confront Him and to help him, but Adam wanted to push off God’s advance to his wife, Eve. When we blame others, we also accept a lot of baggage that God never intended for us to carry. That sin will introduce fear, guilt, and shame into our life, and we would rather carry it instead of letting go and giving it to God.
When we sin, we have chosen to do wrong. The decision process for doing wrong is the same for doing right. Instead of blaming others, we need to get right with God and allow Him to cleanse and purify us. Scripture tells us that “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8, KJV). There is significant relationship between purity and clarity. The closer we are with God, the clearer we’ll see what we’re facing and our true motives.
We don’t like to own our regrets because they’re embarrassing. We never want anyone to know the truth. We also don’t like to own our regrets because they are too emotional for us to handle. We don’t ever want to push our emotions out in front of us. However, if we don’t own up to our regrets, and do not manage these regrets appropriately with the Word, they will destroy us spiritually.
King David made a huge mistake in his life when he committed adultery with Bathsheba, and used his position, power, authority to have her husband killed to cover up his scandal. God loved David enough to send a preacher into his life to confront him. When his sin was uncovered, David didn’t try to blame someone else: he chose to own it. David wrote Psalms 51 and therein acknowledged his sin and asked God for forgiveness.
Today, we can make the decision to take our own regret and claim ownership of it. We can take it to God at an altar of prayer, and he will take that regret from us and cover it with His blood. We don’t have to live with regret today. We can ask God to help us use the same power He gave us to live above sin to own our regret. Once we do this, we can start a new journey that’s regret-free in Jesus.
