Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
This short verse really teaches us what repentance is. Repentance is laid out here in four steps if you look carefully.
Step One: Ponder
Step one. The psalmist, as we're told here, pondered. That means that he stopped moving long enough to slow down and think. We need to do that, and it's a part of repentance. We need to slow down and ponder and to examine where we're going and where we've been and where we are. That's a step that a lot of us skip. We're so busy. We're so distracted, we're so entertained that we don't slow down and ask ourselves the hard questions. Where am I going? What am I doing? What am I becoming? Is my life aligned with what God says is good? Am I honoring Him? We've got to stop. We have to ponder. That's step one.
Step Two: See
Second, he saw. When you honestly examine your life against God's Word, you can't miss the gaps. You see what's amiss. You see where you've drifted. You see what habits that are not honoring to God might have taken root. He slows down, he ponders, and then he sees.
Step Three: Turn
Our third step is so important. This is repentance. He turned. That's not just mere emotional regret. That is a change of direction. It's what repentance means. To repent actually means to change your mind. To repent means to take a 180. It means you're moving in one direction, and you turn around and you move in the other direction. Real repentance isn't just feeling bad about sin, it is leaving it behind. He pondered. He saw. He turned.
Step Four: Obey
Fourth is obedience. He followed God's laws. He didn't turn to self-help. He didn't turn to self-improvement. He turned towards God and he turned towards God's revealed will. Thomas Watson, he gets right to the heart of it when he said, "Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet."
In other words, until you see your sin clearly, you really don't feel the weight of it. You really don't understand the offense that it is to God. It's one thing to just feel bad about getting caught. It's one thing to feel bad about the consequences of sin. It's another thing to feel bad that we have disobeyed God, that we have offended God. When you face it, when you really ponder, when you see sin for what it is, then Christ and His grace becomes infinitely precious to us.
I would ask you to think about, in light of this verse, what needs honest evaluation in your life right now? What would it look like to not just notice it, but to actually turn from your sin to do what this verse talks about in Psalm chapter 119, verse 59: "I pondered the direction of my life and I turned to follow Your laws."
