God uses painful things to expose deadly things. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.

I want to tell you a story. I was at a contentious church conflict. You ever been a part of a church fight? There ain't no fight like a church fight.

You know what I'm saying? And I was at this event and they brought in this consulting minister. He'd been around a while and he knew all the players and so forth. And everybody's sitting there and they're all just all upset. And he stood up and very somberly opined, there can be no healing without repentance. And they all sat there with their arms folded and looked around at each other and agreed that everybody else should repent. Was he right? Was he right that there could be no healing without repentance?

I don't think so. Repentance does not guarantee healing. Repentance does not ensure that.

It can help facilitate healing, but it doesn't provide any guarantees. Mercy, forgiveness, and healing remain exclusively in the province of the offended and the wounded. Now, in today's culture, we seem to muddy the meaning of repentance. You know, we try to mix it up with I'm sorry, apologies, regret, and remorse. And while those things are used together, those words are real different than repentance. Repentance is not only grieving the injuries, but it's also committing to a 180-degree turn from the behavior that caused the wounds. And individuals can express apologies and regret and remorse without repentance, but repentance always includes contrition. So you could say I'm sorry, but not really be repentant. I look back to politicians, and I don't mean to just pick on them.

Well, kind of do, but they're easy targets anyway. But when they get caught in something and they come out and they try to look penitent and they try to look, you know, like what they think we need them to look like in order for us to get, you know, bring them back to our good graces. But are they repentant? Can you think of any major public figure who has been caught in something that has demonstrated repentance? What is repentance? Now, I think of a lot of them that are caught in stuff, and they are remorseful, and they're regretful, and they go out and they try to make a mea culpa, and they try to be sorry about things like that.

And I understand that, you know, I'm not knocking that. But repentance is something vastly different, okay? It's really important that we understand that repentance is something vastly different. Now, Charles Spurgeon said this.

Charles Spurgeon was often referred to as the Prince of Preachers, an extraordinary human being. And he said, repentance is a discovery of the evil of sin, a mourning, M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G, that we have committed it, a resolution to forsake it. It is, in fact, a change of mind of a very deep and practical character, which makes the man love what he once hated and hate what he once loved. People say, well, a leopard can't change its spots.

And they're absolutely right. And I think we get in this thing where we're trying to make apologies for things, but we're trying to change our own spots and we can't do it. We need a whole new leopard. We need to change and be a new creature. And repentance is the doorway to that happening. It's a very painful doorway.

I was telling a pastor friend of mine the other day, I wish that everyone could have a taste of what it looks like to see themselves in the glare of a holy God. And I wish that on no one at the same time, because it is an excruciating process. Repentance always involves death, death to ourselves. We can spin apologies. We can spin, you know, regret and remorse and feeling bad about things and so forth. But you can't spin repentance because it's not a feeling, it's a discovery. It's an awareness. And once you have that awareness, it's life changing.

It's not something you can just put on. It's something that emanates from you when you when you see yourself in the glare of something greater than you. What does that mean to us as caregivers? What does that mean to you and me to deal with repentance? Does it have a practical application to our world as a caregiver?

Yeah, it does. Buckle up because it's getting ready to get a little dicey. Don't go away. 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840. If you want to be a part of the show, this is Peter Rosenberg and this is Hope for the Caregiver.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio. This is Peter Rosenberg and this is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. My life is in your hands. That's my wife, Gracie. Girl can sing. That's off of her new CD, Resilient. She is indeed resilient.

80 surgeries, both legs amputated, nonstop pain since 1983. And she's saying my life is in your hands. No matter what may come my way, my life is in your hands. That's a song of conviction for her. Hey, if you want to be a part of the show, 888-589-8840.

888-589-8840. We're talking about repentance today and I want to delve back into this then we'll get to the phone lines. Why is this important? I go back to this pastor who said you can't have healing without repentance. Now, is the pastor right? And this was at a church conflict. Is the pastor correct?

And that's the big question. And does repentance guarantee healing for the wounded? Repentance is for the perpetrator. Forgiveness, however, is the healing mechanism for the wounded where we learn to release things and let things go so that we can forgive and then experience healing. How many of you all have dealt with wound care where you're dressing wounds and so forth and you've got somebody with serious wounds that don't want to heal very well? And you have to irrigate that wound.

You have to dress it and put on all kinds of ointments or antibacterial stuff or whatever. But when you deal with wound care, there has to be a cleansing of the wound. And that's what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is the cleansing of the wound. Resentment is the septic behavior that will attach itself to a wound. That's when it'll just go septic on it.

And then eventually gangrene and just rot if you don't dress it properly. That's what forgiveness does for our soul. We're able to walk in forgiveness.

That means we're flushing out with a saline solution and we're irrigating that wound out so that we're not letting it go septic. Repentance, however, is something different. And as somebody who has been wounded by a perpetrator who ends up going to jail and has never repented from their behavior, that person who's wounded, that victim can still walk in healing. They can still walk through healing through forgiveness. They can forgive even in the absence of repentance. So repentance is something a little bit different. It means something different.

And it's important for us as caregivers, and I'll tell you why, but I'm just going to kind of set the table a little bit. According to Scripture, you know, individuals, families, churches, the people of God, and even nations can repent. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, then I will hear from heaven and heal their land. God says, humble themselves. This church that I was watching this conflict unfold, there was a fairly significant lapse of humility. Everybody wanted everybody else to repent. And because of the lack of humility and the lack of repentance and forgiveness, the church split. How can the world see repentance modeled if the church won't do it?

Which is kind of a good question. And so this pastor said this, and I said to him afterwards, I said, look, dude, no, that's not the way it works. I can walk in forgiveness and healing no matter what the perpetrator does, no matter what the behavior is of the person who said these things. Now, as a caregiver, you have people that are wounding you on a regular basis.

It could be your loved one that you're taking care of with dementia or whatever. And they're saying the most just horrible things to you. They'll physically abuse you. Curse at you.

Put all kinds of just garbage on you. And not really even be aware of it. And the ones that are aware of it may be so wrapped up in themselves at that point that they don't care.

And they're not about to try to make amends for it. They're not going to repent of that behavior because they don't care or they don't see anything wrong with it or they can't see it. In order to repent, you have to see it. In order to see it, you have to come in contact with with an undisputable evidence of your sin. And you've heard me say on this show many times. There is nothing like taking care of somebody with severe disabilities for a couple of decades to expose the gunk in your own soul. I mean, it is it is frightening the look of yourself that you'll see.

Who wants to see that? And that's what I said to my friend, my pastor friend that I was talking about this. I said, I wish that for everyone and I wish it for no one because it is excruciating. Excruciating. The word excruciating that came up with the word to describe the pain of the cross.

Excruciating. What does Jesus say? Take up your cross daily. Die to yourself. This is not a a I'm sorry, I got caught. This is oh, my gosh, I have to change.

This is put your hand over your mouth and say, I am undone. Woe is me, as Isaiah said, when you see yourself in that light. And God will use the things.

He will use the most crazy things to expose things in us. Because he's interested in faring that out, because he knows that it's cancer and he knows that there's it's malignant in it, but it'll metastasize throughout us and it has it's called sin. And it's more than just feeling remorse. It's more than just repentance is more than just saying, I'm sorry. It is a grieving and a groaning when we see ourselves for what we are.

And we it is. I heard one pastor. I can't remember who it was.

It may have been. Dwight Moody. It sounds like something Dwight Moody would say, but he would say it's it's almost unconscionable. For pastors to preach grace without first helping people understand the need for it. We've got a lot of pastors out there that preach what my father, my father has been a minister now for almost 60 years.

And he what he what he has always termed greasy grace, sloppy agape. We just all we just want to just talk to about everybody. We just want to just love everybody.

We just want to be love, love, love, love, love, grace, grace, grace, grace. Oh, we're just going to hug you. You know, we've got a coronavirus going on right now. Perhaps you've heard of it. If you run into contact with somebody that has it, are you just going to go up and just grab their drink and drink after them and hug up on them and kiss on them and and eat after them?

And let them sneeze on you? It's contagious. And we we do things to protect ourselves from sin.

From contagion, from corruption. Sin is that way. And it's not something that you try to reason with. It's not something you argue with. It's not something you treat lightly.

You've got to get bleach out for it, man. You've got to it's it's you have to go to extreme measures here to deal with it. And then the extreme measure is repentance and relinquishing control over your own sense of righteousness. And we want to vindicate ourselves in all kinds of ways.

But now go back and look at scripture. Who did Jesus save all of his outrage for? The self-righteous. You see, when we try to put on our own self-righteousness, our own martyrdom, our own sense of self-importance, look how special we are because of what we do for another human being. We're dressing up our sin. And not understanding our own need of repentance before God. Ask me how I know that. Because I've done it.

More times than I care to remember. There is nothing like caring for someone with severe disabilities to expose the selfishness and the gunk that's in your soul. And we've got to deal with that.

And the only, only, only way to deal with that is to repent and to see ourselves for what we really are. And that's what God's after. And he will use somebody with Alzheimer's, autism, addiction, whatever. He is not short of tools and individuals that he will use in our life to expose something that he once dealt with.

Ask me how I know that. 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver.

How are you holding up? 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840. I am Peter Rosenberger. I am your host. I am the crash test dummy of caregivers.

If you can fail at it, I have failed at it. But I've learned a few things along the way. For those of you watching on the caregiver cam on Facebook Live, by the way, I took this picture behind me and the snow up there. That's what I love about snow.

We're in southwest Montana and we have lots of snow up here. And I love snow because though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Snow is that promissory picture of what God does with our lives. We don't try to squint our eyes real hard and be better people. We reach out to a savior that can change us and transform us because he's better.

And in the process we become like him. Let's go to Joe. Let me go to the phone lines real quick.

We're talking about repentance this morning and how it affects us as caregivers. We're going to go to Joe in Virginia. Joe, good morning. How are you feeling? Are you there? I'm here, baby. I'm here.

How are you feeling? Well, I feel like you're just speaking directly toward my situation. My wife has been dealing as a caregiver for her mom for almost 25 years and she has really bad dementia. And right now we're going through a process where we're wanting to put her into assisted living. She has very bad dementia, but she's been fighting us, especially because of the church. We've been going to church all these years and she's tried to drive a stake between us. So there's been a lot of bitterness back and forth and, you know, a lot of prayer going on between my wife and I.

But you get to a point in this caregiving where it's like you just say, I can't, you know, I don't see any. You're praying for yourselves, for the other person, but you see no change and it just seems to get worse and worse. Well, the point is not to change the other person with our prayer. The point is for us to change. Well, we've been changing. We've grown deeper and deeper together. My wife and I, it's just, you know, I'm listening to your thing about the repentance and about forgiveness and we've been constantly forgiving.

And I think when he talks about 70 times 7, I think we've been, over the decades, we've been way past that. Well, that's okay. Cool things that kids say to you and you just, you know, and then because of the dementia now toward the end here, she just forgets and comes back and even for the last 10 years, it's been like, oh, I didn't do anything. Well, she didn't.

In many respects, she didn't do anything. She has dementia. And she's not going to make amends for the things she did before she had dementia, but she's always had sinned.

And we all do. And so what you do is you honor the woman that she is that God loves underneath all this thing and by caring for what she's become. But you can detach from dementia and you can detach from her behavior and you don't have to, you know, take it into your spirit. This is the thing that happens with caregivers. We're taking care of somebody and then we feel like we've got to somehow take on what they're saying as gospel truth into our life. And they may be just nuts.

And we don't have to. Our children have always said that. She's just nuts. And we don't try to take it on, but, you know, she's a widow and we feel like there's a responsibility to take care of her, but it's just a constant struggle. Well, there is a responsibility to take care of her and it is a constant struggle, but you don't have to take it into your spirit.

And so maybe you and your wife can then reinforce that after episodic events where she just, you know, does whatever she does. But she's going to say these things and they're cutting or cruel or whatever and you two look at each other and you reinforce what scripture says. Now what does scripture say about you? Now what does scripture say about her? What does scripture say about you? And your walk with Christ and who you are in Christ and where your position is. And behold, if any man is in Christ, he is a new what? Do you know that verse? He's a new creature.

He's a new creature. So she doesn't have the power to detract from what God has done in you. Now she's going to say things that are very hurtful or cutting or whatever, but then you have to recognize this is, she's not doing this to you. She's just doing it.

And if it wasn't you, it'd be somebody else. You two just have to be the closest people to her. So, I mean, I get the guilt of trying to push her away from us. You're not trying to push her away from her. You're trying to properly care for her. And if you cannot properly care for her in her home or your home, then you're going to have to make a different decision.

And she's just going to, you know, she's going to be what she's going to be. But the point is, is that you have to, you and your wife sit down as a family. You look at this, get it up, get out all the applications for the homes that you're looking at or facilities you're looking for. And then go back and look at it in the light of scripture and make the best decision of what is the best stewardship that you can do for you and your wife and your family and for her.

See, it's not about her. It's about the unit. And so, you know, we feel guilty because, you know, she's going to have to do this and this. No, the unit has to make a decision. And when we're so plagued with guilt and we're so torn up with that, we can't see straight. But the unit has to make a decision.

What is the best thing for the unit of the family, of the resources that you have, physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, all those kinds of things. And if the whole unit is being compromised by guilt, then what do you do? Well, we're there and I really thank you for your words this morning and all that you're saying just has really been speaking to my heart this morning. Well, Joe, we get stronger when we say these things to ourselves and I'm going to need you to call back in and tell me these things. So I hope you memorized it because I need you to say the same thing back to me. You know, and that's how we do it. That's how we get stronger. See, we don't as caregivers, I don't think we need a lot of instruction.

I'm not going to give you a lot of instruction to what to do with your mom, your mother-in-law. I don't think we need a lot of instruction, but I think we need a lot of reminders. Exactly.

And if it hasn't been for Jesus, leaning on Jesus in our continued faith, I don't know how we would have got as far as we've gotten. Well, I concur. I mean, there are not a lot of atheists in this foxhole that I've ever met. And so you can probably stand on your head for three, four months, maybe even a couple of years, but when you're in this, I'm in my 34th year of this.

You know, I can say from unequivocal experience, though, that there is no way that I could do this. Because what happens is, is that the further you walk into this, this is why we're talking about repentance today, while we're talking about this. The further you walk into this, the more of yourself that you see. And it's painful to see yourself sometimes.

It really is. Some people say that repentance is an act of faith. I don't know that I agree with that. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Repentance is the evidence of things that I don't want to see.

I like that. And I think that the more you walk through this thing with your mother-in-law and your wife walks through this with you, the more you're going to see things about yourselves as individuals and as a couple. And then that's when we take that into Christ. We run to Christ with this.

We realize that, oh, there's no other place to go. I see myself for what I am now. I see that I am prone to wander, as the hymn says. And I see myself that I am prone to think more highly of myself than I ought. That I look at myself as some kind of great, you know, well, look at what I'm doing.

Oh, Lord, I'm thankful that I'm not like these others. You know? And that's what... That's exactly what you're saying, man. But that is what God's after. And He will bring a mother-in-law with dementia into your life for years, if that's what it takes to get into that place with you. He will do whatever He wants to do in order to bring you to wherever He wants you to be. And where He wants you to be is resting on Him solely for your righteousness.

And then it flows out from there, because He knows that this other stuff is a cancer in our lives. And so He will... I promise you, He'll do whatever He's going to do. He is God all by Himself. And He will do what He's going to do.

And we don't like it sometimes, but we're not consultants. He didn't ask us for permission to sanctify us. And that's what this journey is. See, when we come to Christ, you know, that's an instantaneous transformation when we recognize our salvation in Christ.

And then one day we'll be glorified with Him, and that's an instantaneous transformation. But this sanctification business, that's a lifelong journey that is really uncomfortable. People don't want to talk about that, because that's where the funding dries up for the church. Oh, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

All the letters need to be sent to peter at the internet dot google. No. But people don't want to talk about it. That's why we want to talk about what my father calls greasy grace. We just want to talk about grace all the time. But we don't want to talk about sin. Who wants to talk about sin? God wants to talk about sin. He really wants to talk about sin with us, because He knows that it is death. And He will use these situations that we're in. He will design these situations that we're in to expose this so that you and your wife can come before Him on your knees and recognize, oh, oh, that's on me.

That has nothing to do with my mother-in-law. That's on me. That's me. That's who I am.

A leopard, as I said at the beginning of the show, leopards can't change their spots. But we squint our eyes real hard and we think we can change. We think we're going to do better. We're going to do better. We can't change our spots.

We have to realize, oh, we've got to change. Did you ever read the Chronicles of Narnia, Joe? No, but I know the story. Well, there's seven books. And one of them is called The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

C.S. Lewis wrote these things. And in one scene, this young boy who was just a real brat ended up being turned into a dragon. It's a long story. And he had to take off the dragon in the presence of the lion who was the Christ figure. And he kept trying to do it, and he couldn't do it.

He couldn't do it. And the lion had to do it for you. That's where we are. Joe, thank you so much for the call. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger.

We'll be right back. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger. And in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me.

But over time, my questions changed, and I discovered courage to trust God. That understanding, along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs, led me to establish Standing with Hope. For more than a dozen years, we've been working with the government of Ghana and West Africa, equipping and training local workers to build and maintain quality prosthetic limbs for their own people. On a regular basis, we purchase and ship equipment and supplies.

And with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. That's standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio.

This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. You put this love in our heart. That's what the song says.

That's Keith Green. You put this love in my heart. What does that mean? I mean, think through that. That's a profound statement. I think sometimes we think more highly of ourselves than we ought. I know I do.

I cannot be the only one. But the love that we have, everything we have in that regards is from Him. He put it there, but in order to put it there, something has to come out, and that's the process of repentance. And that's what we've been talking about today for you as a caregiver, for me as a caregiver, for us as individuals. And God will use these things. Let's get outside of the world of somehow thinking that, oh, woe is unto me because I am a caregiver.

No, no, no. God is using this in your life right now to reveal things about you that need to be dealt with. If you think differently than that, turn off the radio.

This is not the show for you because you're not going to want to hear the rest of it. The truth will set you free, but it's going to hack you off first. And that's the truth of the reality is that God will use things in our life, painful things, to expose deadly things in us. That's the truth. Anybody that tells you different is selling something, and it's just unpleasant. But in order to experience the grace and the forgiveness and the reconciliation and the restoration that is available from God through Christ, you've got to walk through that.

That's the bad news. You've got to walk through it. The good news is He's going to walk through it with you, and He's not going to leave you alone. And as you clean up the next mess that your loved one makes, as you stand in a hospital room corridor alone the next time, as you stay up late at night trying to deal with a screaming child with special needs, and the next time an aging parent with dementia curses at you and belittles you and treats you poorly while you are changing their diapers, understand that this is the part of the process that God is walking with you through these things to squeeze out things in your life that will kill you in order to pour things into your life that are sanctifying you and that are healing you. The goal is not to feel better, and I think that's what we want to do. I knew of a fellow that had gone through some infidelities in his marriage, not some, but it was a bad situation, and later said, it took a while, but after a while I started feeling better. That's not the goal, is to feel better.

The goal is to be better. We're never going to feel better about these things. My wife doesn't have any legs. She lives with relentless pain every single day. A while back she told me, she said, I dreamed I was in pain. She can't even get away from it in her dreams. She's never going to feel better about that, and neither will I. A fellow that just called from Virginia, taking care of his mother with dementia, has been doing it for years, and she's just bitter.

You're not going to feel better about it, but we can be better. Scripture says that all creation is groaning in anticipation of God making all this right. All of creation. I'm in Southwest Montana, and I'm up in the Rockies, and I'm looking out at snow-covered mountains and vast plains. Those of you watching on the Caregiver Cam on video, and by the way, if you want to see more things like that, you can go out to our podcast, it's free, caregiverpodcast.com, or go to our website, hopeforthecaregiver.com, and follow along with it.

It's the number one caregiver podcast in the world, and it's free. Take advantage. And I put some stuff out there from Montana, and it's beautiful what I look at.

It's extraordinary. But even that creation is groaning. And the life lesson I've learned from watching this is that even with the groaning, there are places of extraordinary beauty that we can see, that we can touch, that we can experience. But these are only tastes of what is to come.

I'm not going to camp here for eternity. I know that he is working through all these things to bring us to something that's even more beautiful, where we won't groan, but we're not there yet. And if all creation is groaning, and I'm part of that creation, then I'm going to groan. The goal is not to stop groaning. The goal is to keep our eyes on Him as we do it. He knows when the groaning will stop.

The question is, are you going to trust Him while you do it? And part of that journey is repentance and recognizing that, wait a minute, I am not in control of this. He is God, and I am not.

And I see myself for what I am. And as long as we squint our eyes real hard and clench our fists and try to make sure that we're not going to, that we are better than we think that we are, that we are better people, that we are more righteous, or that we have the high ground. We don't have the high ground.

We don't have the ground. And for those of you new into caregiving, this may not ring as clear as I would like for it to be for you. But for those of you who've been doing this for some time, you understand what I'm talking about. And you've sat there and seen yourself for this. You've looked at the ceiling and had those conversations with the ceiling fan late at night and seen your own self. That's what God's after. For you to see it, and for you to repent of it, and for you to trust Him to remake it and remake you. Behold, if any man is in Christ, he's a new creature. It's hard to grasp that. I get it. I truly get this, that it is hard to put your mind around this.

But in my fourth decade of this, I would suggest to you that there is no other way. And then once we enter into that place, you watch Him start changing you. It's like we pray real hard to change our love. Everybody else needs to change. I go back to that pastor who said, there can't be any healing without repentance.

And everybody sits around with their arms folded. They're all glaring at each other saying, yeah, everybody else has got to repent. No, there can't be any reconciliation without repentance. There can be healing without repentance. People that are wounded can heal without repentance.

They really can. That's called forgiveness. And you let it go and you walk away from those things and you release them. They can't be any reconciliation without repentance. And ultimately the reconciliation we want is between us and God. And that is not going to happen without repentance.

Not the big rah-rah-ree, happy, happy, happy, all the time, time, time message this morning. But this is the reality for caregivers. And we're seeing these things and we see ourselves in the light of this. And we see what is exposed in us as we gnash our teeth while taking care of another human being. And we raise our fist to God for not intervening. How could a good and loving God allow me to do this?

How could a good and loving God allow this to happen? These are questions that we ask that reflect our character, our nature. It's okay to ask the questions.

Because it's important for us to be able to see this. David asks those questions all the time in Psalms. Go back and read Psalm 13. Read it slowly. And then after you read it, it's real short. And then after you read it once, go back and read it again.

Very slowly. And then you start to see it's okay to struggle with what you're looking at. And the travails that you're dealing with.

But then what do you do with them? And that's where we go into Christ and realize, oh, and that's where the cross looms so large. Because that settles all of this. When I survey the wondrous cross, we're in the season of Lent right now. Where we reference that, what has gone on with that. There's no other place to go. And that's why we have hope as caregivers. This is Peter Rosenberg. We'll see you next week.