Children, sin and regret
by Pastor Chris Mann
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‘It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire’ (Matthew 18:8b).
Regret.
Is it part of your life? It’s part of mine. There are things I wish I had not done, people I wish I had not hurt, and lives I wish I had not damaged.
And while I know that I am forgiven, and in many cases, relationships are fully restored, healthy, healed, and whole, that doesn’t change the fact that something happened that should not have happened.
Sometimes people have said to me, ‘I live life with no regrets’. For some of them, because I know people close to them, I’ve thought to myself, ‘There are people who love you who wish you had some regrets’. I’ve seen the power of regret and how a lack of it can cause people to keep on harming others.
Harming people is wrong, bad, sinful, evil.
Doing things that cause little ones – children – to stumble and turn from God is in that category. I don’t have to name what they might be. Jesus gives us enough imagery in this passage.
May we all work for the protection and the blessing of children, whenever we encounter them.
Saviour Jesus, you tell us just how important children are to you. Help us to value children like you do – keeping them safe, praying for them, and blessing them. Amen.
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