Regret is what happens when you talk yourself into something that you should have been talking yourself out of.

Your greatest regret in life was probably preceded by you going back and forth, in a conversation with yourself, about why you should and shouldn’t do what you finally wound up doing. You talked yourself into something that you now regret.

These conversations often start out by saying “There is nothing wrong” with whatever it is that we are contemplating. And even though that may be true in the strictest sense, somehow, the next thing you know, you have done something wrong.

How did that happen? In general, our greatest moral regrets don’t happen all at once. They came at the end of a series of unwise choices. Just because something isn’t wrong, that doesn’t make it right.

It is not always that a particular decision is wrong, sometimes it is just unwise. And a series of unwise decisions can start things moving in an unhealthy and dangerous direction.

The problem is that we are so good at lying to ourselves. We tend to rationalize (we tell ourselves rational lies). Pretty soon we are talking ourselves into things we should be talking ourselves out of and we are talking ourselves out of things we should be talking ourselves into.

These unwise choices take us down a very dangerous path.

When it comes to moral issues, relationships and expressions of your sexuality, crossing certain lines will lead to extraordinary regret and add extraordinary complexity to your life. Be careful that you don’t make a series of unwise decisions that lead you to step across the line and cause you to do something that will follow you in your heart, in your conscience, perhaps in your body, for the rest of your life.

We live in a world that basically says anything goes. But even though there has been a dramatic cultural shift when it comes to the matters of sexuality (behavior) and morality (principles), God’s standards have never changed.

We can try to twist it, spin it, adapt it or revise it, but in the end, God’s truth remains.

“Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.” Romans 12:2 — The Message

Next time we will see what else God has to say about this important aspect of our lives.

Read Steve Greene’s blog at www.pastorgreene.wordpress.com or email him at [email protected].