Godly sorrow helps us Grow

Any aspect of our selves that is disapproved of or attacked in a significant relationship can come under “judgment”, and then guilt attacks that part of the soul from the inside. If a parent, for example, belittles a child’s need for affection, a critical and punishing voice against that part of the child gets internalized. This is partly how our conscience is formed. Then, until the conscience gets modified, the person will feel guilt whenever he or she expresses that aspect of themselves, even if it is a good part. A new conscience has to be internalized and developed in new relationships. People have to learn to express themselves in a new and safe relational setting to get the encouragement and healing that God provides.     

Guilt is self-directed. It focuses on how bad I am, not on what I have done to hurt the other person. If I am feeling guilty, then I am concerned about feeling good again, not about the way I may have hurt someone. Guilt does not keep anyone in check. Those who “push guilt” fear that without guilt, nothing will stop bad behavior and people will do whatever they want. Instead guilt causes people to rebel resulting in an increase of sin. As Paul says, the law causes sin to increase (see Romans 5:20, 7:5). God does not want the believer to feel guilt. Instead, He wants you to see how your behavior affects other people. This is essence of love.

Godly sorrow is “other-directed”. Godly sorrow focuses on the other person. Those who express godly sorrow empathize with how their behavior has affected someone else. This is why the Bible talks about the wrath of God for the nonbeliever who is still truly guilty, contrasted with His being “grieved” when believers sin. There is no mention or room for guilt, wrath, or condemnation for the believer. Instead of our feeling guilty, He wants us to be concerned with how we have hurt Him with our sin. Godly sorrow ends up in repentance. When we realize we are hurting someone we love, we change.

Guilt does nothing to help. “There is therefore now no condemnation”, but there is lots of dysfunction. The verse “no condemnation” comes at the beginning of Romans 8. It annihilates our guilt all together, but the chapter does not go on from there to say we have nothing to worry about. Instead, it says we have to worry a great deal about how we are living and what we are doing, for we are either producing life or death by how we are living our lives. It has nothing to do with guilt, but with what sin does to us:

“Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation – but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a Spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by Him we cry Abba, Father” (Romans 8:12-15). The Bible shows us not to be afraid of God and out of feeling guilty, and into living the life of spiritual health and growth.