"...but worldly sorrow produces death."

I've called Lance's latest eNews amazing, and I think it is for many reasons.

I've also said that, if I'm reading him correctly, one one point, the differences between us are deadly.

Lance talks in a positive way about unsettledness and discontent, fearfulness and restlessness among people he meets in the CGGC, about true repentance and about the Holy Spirit agitating--as if being agitated is a good thing.

The fact that Lance welcomes these is, I think, a counter-revolutionary way of thinking compared to the way Ed wrote the eNews and to the way Dr. Richardson of the ERC has been creating his recent YAY GOD videos.

Understand this: Lance's openness to negative emotion is a profoundly good thing.

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Many times here, I've either quoted or alluded to 2 Corinthians 7:10 and Paul's words, "...godly sorrow produces a repentance that leads to salvation..."

However, I rarely finish my quote of what Paul says, which is, "...but worldly sorrow produces death."

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Here at Faith, we have practiced the New Testament command to confess our sins to each other and we've done it in our gatherings. It's never been a regular aspect of life in our community, but it's happened several times.

And, in that setting, I've seen godly sorrow that produces repentance and I've seen worldly sorrow leads to death.

Based on Lance's words and my experience, what I'm seeing in the CGGC is the worldly sorrow that produces death, not the godly sorrow that produces repentance.

As I understand it, godly sorrow focuses on a broken relationship between, as is the case in 2 Corinthians 7, a church body and the Lord.

What Lance describes is restlessness, even fearfulness, over the failure of the CGGC institution. Excuse the harshness of this observation, but Lance describes narcissism, the notion that it's all about us, not the Lord.

WE're not attracting and keeping young people, 
WE're losing the culture war,
...if WE don't do something quick, WE're not going to be here much longer.

When I've seen sorrow at Faith, and I've had time to see the fruit it has produced, what Lance is describing resembles the worldly sorrow that produces death.

On this blog, especially lately, I've been going to great lengths to frame the state of the CGGC union in terms of its standing before the Lord.

"THE LORD OF ALL AUTHORITY AND POWER AND MERCY AND GRACE AND BLESSING IS NOT BLESSING THE CGGC."

I've written those words over and over again. That is the central CGGC truth in 2017.

And, Lance is not telling us that he meets CGGC people who are talking about our disconnection from the Lord's blessing and power.

I'm not seeing it either.

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Is all lost for the CGGC?

I've said it before and I repeat it now:

No. Things are not too late but we must repent in a way that, as Paul says it, "leads to salvation."

We are on track to living in a sorrow that produces death.

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One final observation:

I've seen the sorrow that leads to salvation and I've seen the sorrow that produces death.

The most fiercely emotional sorrow I've seen personally appears to have been worldly sorrow and has, at least at this moment, produced death.

In the CGGC, we need to refocus ourselves on the greatest of all the commands. We must love the Lord, not the CGGC institution.

If we do that, we may find the godly sorrow that produces a repentance that leads to salvation.

Pray that we do.