No Regrets

When someone tattoos the word skinhead on his forehead, there’s a good chance he will one day regret doing so. While running with entirely the wrong crowd, one young man got such a tattoo and soon afterward felt bad about what he had done. Tattoos can be inexpensive and relatively painless.

Tattoo removal —as our man found out— is neither. Before getting a tattoo, many people have been told, “You’re going to regret this!” And sure enough, many do —like the young man who tattooed his girlfriend’s name on his chest in large letters. After he broke up with her, he found a new girlfriend with a different name.

He wasn’t the only one who wished he had never visited a tattoo artist. Not everyone has the same regrets. But something that always causes regret is sin.

Sooner or later, the effects of sin catch up with a person, and what may have seemed like a good idea at the time is eventually seen for what it truly is.

Sin is never harmless, and it always has negative consequences, no matter how small it may have seemed at the time.

Resisting sin is not a matter of will power; it is a matter of the will. Choosing not to engage in sin is a matter of choice.

The choice to side with God and be kept by His power is a matter of surrendering the will to God, of praying the prayer Jesus prayed when He said the night before He died: “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39).

In Revelation 3:10, Jesus made a promise to the church of Philadelphia that anyone can claim. “I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation” (KJV). God says in Jude 24 that He “is able to keep you from falling” (KJV).

While we are comforted to know God extends grace to any repentant sinner, we will experience a lot less regret when we take God at His word and choose to stand in His power.