The Glaring Difference Between Being Truly Repentant and Being Merely Remorseful

Against Whom Have I Sinned? I was sitting with a couple in their late 20s, and for the years leading up to this moment, they had been busy building their life, having children, building their careers. But secretly, the husband had been committing adultery. He had not addressed this or confessed this to his wife or to anyone. He hid his sin within him. Over the months, he stopped eating as much as he should have. He was losing a tremendous amount of weight. He was continually depressed and was kind of at the end of himself. His wife was doing everything she could to help minister to him, care for him, and bring him back to health. And then finally, one day he couldn’t take it anymore, and he confessed his sin to his wife. That’s what led us to sitting in my study, to talk about it. I could tell that he was remorseful. There were tears in his eyes. But I also understood he hadn’t experienced repentance in the way that Scripture shows. And so I grabbed a whiteboard and a dry-erase marker and I said, “Just do this exercise with me. Let’s make a list of everyone that you have sinned against over these last few months.” All of the names you would expect were then listed: his wife, the na...