Chapter 4: The Cry of a Guilty ConscienceThis chapter stirred my heart as I read of six different ways people deal with their guilt. Except for the last, these mechanisms are useless and add pain to our lives. Only the last way of surrendering our guilt to God’s grace can bring the freedom from guilt and sin that we so desperately need. But, it is sad to realize that we often default to irreverence, pride, fear, devalue it from a cultural perspective, or declare ourselves innocent. What bondage and pain we endure when we don’t bring our guilt to our Savior.
Which makes me ask the hard question—how do I deal with guilt? What do I do with my short-comings, weaknesses, sins? Do I treat them differently? Are some given readily to God and others explained away, or made excuses for? Do I justify, cover up, minimize? I’m afraid I have tendencies to do each of these.
In this Easter season when we remember our Lord’s death and resurrection, it seems so sad to me that my response to my sin sometimes ignores the incredible painful price He paid for my sin. Ravi says, “Only in the admission of sin is there a genuine restoration, because guilt is first a vertical problem before it is a horizontal one. God is the one who has been violated before humanity has been wronged.”
He also says, “I have a Savior for you. He went to the cross to carry that penalty and pay our price. It was not cheap; it was God’s priceless gift of His Son to bear the guilt brought by the sin of the world.”
We have been so blessed by Christ’s death—by the price He paid. As followers of Christ, we believe He died for our sins and rose again. But, sometimes, in the blush of realizing our guilt in daily sins, we don’t live what we believe—at least I don’t always live this truth.
So my questions for us this week are:
- How do you respond to your guilt? The past guilt? The present, daily guilt?
- How do you live every day as a person set free from death to life? Or, do you?
- What helps you respond with humility and acceptance of God’s grace when confronted with guilt?
I look forward to letting the Holy Spirit search my heart this week and writing my response on our blog. I hope you’ll be posting your thoughts there, too.
As I close, I offer this prayer for us:
Dear Forgiving God, who with unimaginable sacrifice paid for all the sins of the world—and all of ours, please help us to realize when our pride refuses your forgiveness for whatever reason. Please help us to turn to you in humility and genuine repentance to receive your grace, mercy and forgiveness. Help us to see the times we ignore, hide, minimize, trivialize, or justify our guilt and free us from those prisons. We love you, our amazing Heavenly Father, our generous and loving Savior, our faithful Teacher and Comforter.
Amen.
Amen.
6 comments:
In my life I often deal with two kinds of guilt. The first comes from feeling like I didn't measure up in a situation to someone's expectation or second guessing a decision that I made. Often in those cases, I am feeling guilty over something that I don't need to feel guilty about. It is just life that happens. The other kind of guilt is due to sin. My action or lack of action has harmed someone. My thoughts or words have been unkind. When I have guilt, it eats away at me which is a good thing because then I am more quick to deal with it. I have found solace in the scriptures on forgiveness such as Psalm 51 and others. Sometimes though I have to watch that I am not just confessing to feel better but because I am repentant and want to change. I am thankful that God takes me where I am and leads me to where I need to be. I can't say that I live as person set free every day. I struggle with the first type of guilt where I daily need to lay my insecurities at the feet of the cross. When I am consistently in the word, I am more likely to look above rather then within but even then I still struggle. What has probably helped me the most is when I have another lady I can share and be real with and also pray with. I am finding that in brokenness there is healing. When I am confronted with guilt, it is God's promises likes his compassions are new every morning that drive me to my knees because it is only there I can find peace and rest.
Linda, thanks for the reminder that we do not have a cheap grace but one that came at a great price.
I really like the following quote. "Jesus did not come into the world to make bad people good. He came into this world to make dead people live." My goal this week is to truly live.
This morning I woke at 3 because my body clock still thinks I'm 12 hours away from home. The extra morning hours gave me time to pray and sit in God's word. As I did, I read chapter 4 of Revelations. We follow an amazing God who is so Holy, Holy, Holy. I was struck by the prefectness of our God who in that majesty of who He is still loves us when we're rebellious and sinful. I am so grateful to Him.
God's Word is so powerful. It is a sword the pierces my heart, confronts my attitudes and teaches me about God and how to live as His child. I don't like being confronted with my sin--I don't like letting my God or my family and friends down--I don't like not being perfect. So when I'm confronted with my guilt, there is temptation to deny which doesn't fix anything. It seems the quicker I get over my pride and come to Jesus, the quicker I'm able to confess, repent, and receive His amazing grace and forgiveness.
I'm striving to arrive at this place of honest confession and repentance ASAP--though I know it is a process that gets me there. It's just His forgiveness and the forgiveness of others is so much better than my denial or living with my guilt. Like TJ says, my goal is life, not death and my guilt leads to death, His forgivenss leads to life!
I so appreciate TJ's two type of guilt "categories". I can relate. I too can find myself feeling guilty about stuff I "shouldn't"... My husband jokes that though he has "too little guilt", I have "too much guilt"--- I suppose we balance each other. And actually, joking aside, we have balanced each other (praise the Lord). He has taught me alot about grace and freedom.
Of course, when dealing with out-and-out sin in my life... the guilt, I find is a blessing. A blessing IF I take it to the Father quickly and then receive His grace. Given my "too much guilt"-issue, though, the key is LIVING in that forgiveness. After repentance and forgiveness, the key is living as clean, loved and forgiven! ...still a learning curve for me.
I did appreciate Ravi's descriptions of ways that guilt is dealt with--- I could think of practical examples of how this plays out around me, and in me.
Where the insecurity can lead to false guilt in my life, it seems that the 'covering guilt with pride' occurs most in my life in places where I am most secure, strange as that sounds. I am refering to my relationships with my husband and kids. Sometimes my bad behavior (and then appropriate guilt) is covered in pride... and shrouded in reasons "why" I should be upset or why it isn't my fault. Need the grace of God to be keenly aware of this response and come to Jesus (and my family members) for forgiveness.
Yes, His grace is not cheap ...and He deserves keen awareness and quick repentance.
I definitely fall into the category of trying to "cover my guilt with pride". I don't like being wrong about something and I hate making mistakes or downright bad choices.
I loved the quote by C.S. Lewis “It was through pride that the devil became the devil”.
It was a refreshing reminder that each day I need to take all of my guilt to the cross. The price has already been paid, so why do I choose to carry it around or try to cover it up?
I also liked the quote about Jesus coming to make dead people live. It is when I fail to see how my sin makes me dead that I find myself justifying my sin and not taking it to the father. When I am reminded by the Word and the Holy Spirit that my guilt comes because I am a "dead man walking" then I can face my sin and bring it before the Father and ask for forgiveness.
I tend to be afraid to bring my sin to the Father. Not because I think he won't forgive me, but because I then have to confess that I did something wrong. This is fear of exposure as Ravi says, but it is also pride. I think I should be better - I'm a Christian and a missionary so I have to be an example so I should be better. When my sin is exposed then others can see that I am not better. So, my pride and fear get in the way.
I need God's word every day to help me combat that pride and fear. It is when I have been spending time with the Lord that I am able to face the fear and the pride and confess my sin. Jesus did pay the price for my sin, so I need to acknowledge that every day and lay my sin and guilt at his feet so it can be forgiven.
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