When we do things that are harmful or hurtful to ourselves and/or others, it harms and hurts God, too. When King David lusted after Bathsheba and set her husband up for certain death on the battlefield, the prophet Samuel exposed him for his sins. After David was exposed for committing adultery and murder, his prayer of confession to God was, “Against you alone have I sinned.”

There are several responses that we can have when we hurt God, ourselves, and/or others, but there is only one response that leads to genuine repentance. On the darker side, we can be happy and relish in our sins, or we can be completely indifferent to and/or willingly ignorant of them. On the brighter side we can be regretful for our sins and/or even remorseful over them. The latter response is better than the former, but even this response will not always lead us to exchange our destructive behavior for healthy behavior.

The Apostle Paul realized this fact and exhorted his flock with these words of wisdom. “Godly sorrow leads to repentance.” Godly sorrow is produced when God Himself shows us the nature of our self centered and satanically inspired sins and the consequences of harm and hurt that they have caused Him, others, and ourselves.

When Godly sorrow is granted to us, repentance for our sins is also granted unto us, and we are supernaturally changed in our spirits, souls, and bodies for the better.

It must also be understood that our highhanded, deliberate, and habitual sins have a hardening and callusing effect on our hearts and minds. More often than not, for us to even come to a place of Godly sorrow leading to repentance, God has to replace our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh.

Only intercessory prayer can accomplish this. Good news! “Christ ever lives to make intercession for us.” “The Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.” The church, being bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh, and being filled with His Holy Spirit, are also called to make intercession according to the will of God. “God’s will for us is our sanctification.”

So let us become very resolute about our intercession and “pray without ceasing” that God will replace our stony hearts brought on by willful, deliberate, highhanded, and habitual sins with “hearts of flesh, turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers,” and that He will grant us Godly sorrow leading to repentance. Amen?