Deuteronomy 1:26. Notwithstanding ye would not go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God:

Deuteronomy 1:43. So I spake unto you; and ye would not hear, but rebelled against the commandment of the Lord, and went presumptuously up into the hill.

Rebellion and Feigned Repentance

Moses is retelling the story about the nation of Israel’s rebellion, from 40 years before, to the children that survived from the wilderness wandering.  We see from that story that there was one central theme, rebellion and feigned repentance.  The children of Israel doubted God and would not go up and conquer the land.  They later changed their mind and decided they would go up, but this time they were told that God would not be with them.  They then decided to go up without the Lord.  They ended up rebelling against God twice.  The important thing I want to pull from this story is that you can always decide to get right with God; however, the consequences after that are not always up to you.  In this case, the Lord had already decided that they were not going into the land and He was not backing up on that.

You Cannot Choose the Consequences of Sin

You cannot always regain blessings, that God intended for you, when you decide to get right with God after your backsliding.  The best thing is to trust God from the beginning.  If you do backslide on God and get rebellious, you need to “man up” and take what God does give you, with a good attitude.  If the children of Israel had true repentance, they would have accepted God’s punishment and been content with that.  I am not sure that rebellious generation ever learned their lesson and had a true repentance toward God.  I hope that is not he case with you either.

Come to God With Open Hands

When you do wrong, do you repent just so you don’t lose some blessing from God?  That is not true, godly repentance.  The prodigal, when on the way home from the far country, was willing to take whatever he could have from the father.  He was not expecting or demanding to get back what he had when he left.  He just wanted to be a servant in the father’s house.  That was way better than the hog pen diet he was currently on!  When we rebel against the Lord, and sin, we need to make sure we don’t have a feigned repentance like the children of Israel, with only the end goal in mind of getting back some lost blessings.  We need to come back to the Lord with open hands and be willing to take whatever God desires for our lives.