It's all about your identity
We have all heard about guilt. Most Christians have heard that guilt is not something that is healthy, but so many still struggle with it. Guilt just kind of hangs on to them. Is there a healthy guilt? Is there an unhealthy or a false guilt? The answer is yes to both. What some call "false guilt" can actually be shame.
What is guilt?
The Vines dictionary defines guilty as:
Enochos: "held in, bound by, liable to a charge or actions at law, brought to trial, under judgment."
Guilty and enochos are also translated in the Greek as "danger." "Held in contained to have bound under obligation to, liable to, subject to, connecting a person to his crime." The main verb is defined as; bound, bondage like one who cannot even obtain bail during the trial, imprisoned.
God did not make a mistake when it comes to guilt. Guilt comes from what we did wrong, breaking rules or laws. Guilt does not condemn us as bad people it only convicts us that what we did wrong. It is designed to react to God's laws and make us feel like we need help when we fall short. When we break a law, we are supposed to feel guilt so that we may come to Jesus and be cleansed. God set us up with the law in our hearts, Adam lost it, Jesus got it back. If we break the law, we are set up to feel guilty. We broke the law, and the judge and court tells us "guilty."
"For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all" (James 2:10).
Under the Hebrew covenant, guilt was supposed to bring the people to the Day of Atonement with joy so that their sins would be blotted out. This had to do with the blood sacrifice that died in their place as they watched the priests kill the heifers, the goats and the other animals.
How and where does guilt operate?
Our soul has three functions, the will (volition), the mind or intellect, and the emotions. In much the same way our spirit has three functions, those being conscience, intuition and communion (with God or the spiritual world). 1 "I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit" (Romans 9:1).
Guilt works on our spirit functions, it causes callousness of the three functions and they set up like concrete and become hard. 1 Timothy 4:2 says, "Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron."
Titus 1:15 says, "Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled."
Many people become stuck in their past guilt.
If you do not forgive yourself, or in other words, truly receive and realize God's forgiveness for your past sins, you will be a prisoner with horrible consequences for the rest of your life. Either Jesus' work on the Cross, His blood, was sufficient for all your past sins, or it was not. There is no in-between. You cannot help to pay for your past sins by beating yourself up with some pseudo guilt. Jesus did the work; if you have repented you are forgiven, nothing more can be done.
Some of the results of not accepting Jesus' complete blood sacrifice are that you may become judgmental of others, you will not be able to fellowship with God in the fullness of the Holy Spirit and intimacy, you will never enter into your calling in life, you will not be able to love others, others will not "like" you, your life will feel paralyzed, you may experience poor physical health, and your emotional and spiritual health will be greatly compromised. Even secular psychiatrists agree that the common denominator for psychiatric problems is guilt.
The Word of God says that God has forgiven you no matter how horrible your past sins were. You are in disagreement with God if you do not receive this wonderful gift. I understand that it may seem too good to be true, however God loves to give you things that are seemingly too good to be true!
What is shame?
Guilt, as designed by God, is supposed to convict your conscience about sin and bring you to repent so that your close intimacy with God is restored. Guilt does not attack the person, just what the person has done. Shame attacks your very identity and gives you the message that you are simply no good, not worthy, bad beyond repair, and in a hopeless state.
Shame is disguised as guilt. It is a counterfeit of guilt perpetrated by Satan.
Evil people and satanic beings have learned how to use guilt and shame against us. If Satan cannot stop us from coming to Jesus to obtain forgiveness for those things that we did wrong, then the next tool he will use is shame.
People use shame to manipulate.
My wife and I have both seen this in action. Satan, evil people and demons perpetrate shame and cause us to believe that we are unworthy.
Shame builds a horrible wall between God and us just as does guilt. We cannot have intimacy with Him, our conscience feels condemned and our intuition is put out of order. We feel separated from God and He cannot minister to us. We cannot sense His presence, we do not believe the Word, and we think we are unworthy good-for-nothing sinners. We are paralyzed.
Pastor Jack Hayford, of Church on the Way in Van Nuys California, told a story of a lady who desperately was seeking the baptism in the Holy Spirit but could not seem to break through. When he ministered to her for the cleansing of shame, she immediately began to praise God in tongues.
Shame blocks intimacy in marriage.
Not only does shame block intimacy with God but it blocks it with others as well; the most important being intimacy in marriage.
Some of the attributes of shame.
Shame is difficult to resolve, because it is based on how you view yourself, who you believe you are. Shame is the result of not meeting the expectations or approval of others, or being looked down upon by others.
Shame says, "Don't talk, and don't tell anybody, you can't be honest." That gives you a painful internal feeling. Shame tell you that you are useless, inadequate, worthless, valueless, dirty, never good enough, no good, bad, alienated, abandoned, damaged, different, defective, alone, or dumb.
I have often wondered why so many people cannot be honest and cannot express themselves. I sense that perhaps a lot of it comes from a learned behavior of keeping "shameful things hidden."
Shame is about who we believe we are, not about what we have done.
Shame is a belief about yourself that there is something inherently wrong. You feel like you are hopelessly flawed.
Shame brings self-hatred.
People put shame on us beginning in early childhood, sometimes on purpose sometimes innocently. Have you ever heard these shame statements?
Shame on you
Do not get upset
Don't cry
Be good
Be nice
Be a man, act like a lady
Avoid conflict at all costs
You are doing that same old thing again. Won't you ever change?
You cannot afford to be honest
Act like a nice girl
Don't betray the family
Be seen and not heard
You did that after all I have done for you?
You make me sick
One of the biggest avenues of shame is a fatherless home. If a child sees other children interacting with their fathers who are engaged in their lives, they might say to themselves, "I must not be good enough. What did I do wrong? Why can't I be like the other kids?" This brings a deep-rooted level of shame.
Shame can be transmitted by abuse.
The abuse does not even need to have been a sexual or physical abuse; simple emotional abuse will bring shame. Somehow the perpetrator steals the moral authority of the victim. The victim then takes on the responsibility for what has occurred.
Sexual promiscuity will bring guilt and shame. Quite often this is a subconscious issue.
Shame can be transmitted by family patterns.
One can learn how to manipulate people with shame because they were manipulated or because they learned the behavior from their parents.
Some people are experts at manipulating with shame and/or guilt.
They do it unconsciously. They just seem like they put out some sort of "spiritual powder" that fills the air with "Can't you see how bad off I am?" or, "Do you see how I have been done wrong? Or "Please feel sorry for me." Before you know it you become their slave, serving them out of their own self-pity, doing things on their behalf that you should not be doing.
Queen Victoria, queen of England during the 1800s, studied the subject of how people controlled others. She concluded that people with evil hearts know how to manipulate people with good hearts with guilt and shame.
What does guilt and shame do if not dealt with?
If it is not dealt with according to God's plan, guilt and shame builds a wall and blocks your contact with God. It is difficult to hear Him speak. It is difficult to pray, the Word seems lifeless. If you read the Word all you feel is condemnation.
Guilt numbs our conscience, intuition and communion.
If we are going to be overcomers, we must continually hear God speak, we must have that sweet communion with Him. Otherwise we cannot know who we really are in Christ, we cannot walk a godly life, and we cannot stand against the devil.
"Healthy" guilt should drive us to repentance and to Jesus because we see our need for the blood sacrifice and for His justification. 2 Corinthians 7:10 says, "For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death." The sorrow of the world is sorrow due to shame, and the end of sorrow due to shame is death, or in other words, separation from God. Death always means some type of separation.
Guilt and shame feel like a stain in your soul and spirit, and often you can even feel it in your body. Adam experienced guilt when He disobeyed God's Word.
Good news for "bad" people. We have been justified!
Romans 5:9 says, "Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." Justified is a term used in courtrooms. It is the opposite of the guilt verdict. Jesus took your guilt and shame and set you free from your "jail sentence."
Isaiah 53:11 says, "He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify [make free from guilt and shame] many, For He shall bear their iniquities."
Even though Jesus has justified us, we cannot stand during our trials if we are under guilt or shame. Satan attempts to keep us in guilt and/or shame so that we will not finish the process of bearing fruit and standing on the Word of God. Our job is to conduct spiritual warfare through confessing the appropriate Scriptures and continuing in the mind renewing process.
Justification by the blood of Jesus will cleanse your conscience.
The good news of the Gospel is meant to set us free from guilt and shame so that we may fellowship with Jesus. Being in His presence and in His Word is the only way that He can clean us up. Sure we all have areas where we still are law-breakers in one way or another, but instead of condemning us, Jesus wants us to come to Him so that He may eliminate our "flesh behavior" and reveal His character in us. Jesus calls us into His Light as He did the woman in John chapter 8 who was taken in adultery. John 8:11-12 says, "She said, 'No one, Lord.' And Jesus said to her, 'Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.' Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, 'I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.'"
Our Pastor Emeritus of Mount Paran North Church of God, Dr. Paul Walker, always used the ministry style of showing his people that God does not condemn them. He emphasized the Good News. He knew that if he could remove their guilt and shame that they could connect with God for themselves and that Jesus would finish the work in that person's life. That cannot happen if you paralyzed by guilt or shame. If it is guilt then simply repent, confess your sins, ask God to help you to hate your sins, and He will cleanse you and forgive you. You will then be free to sense His presence and move on to maturity.
Jesus offered Himself to be shamed for you and for me so that we could be free.
Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus took the shame for us, ignoring, or despising it as something that He was happy to do for us. Being hung naked as a criminal in front of a crowd of mockers will bring shame, shame of many varieties, even the variety that has been put on you.
Hebrews 12:2 says, "looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
One of Jesus' primary missions, as recorded in His mission statement of Isaiah 61 was the removal of shame. "Instead of your shame you shall have double honor, And instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double; Everlasting joy shall be theirs" (Isaiah 61:7).
If it is shame, then appropriate the blood of Jesus and its cleansing power to wash you as white as snow.
It is all about our identity.
If you really know who you are as God sees you, shame will loose its grip.
Take a deep breath now and see who you really are through the eyes of Truth. The Word of God is the only true genealogy of who you are. If you know who you are, you will not behave like who you are not. Truth is the most powerful weapon in the universe.
Jesus bore our shame on the Cross and gave us His clean identity
"I gave My back to those who struck Me, And My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting" (Isaiah 50:6).
The Word of God is the only thing that can renew our mind to the Truth! Study and meditate on these truths, confess the Scriptures, determine to believe them no matter what your senses tell you, until they renew your mind.
However, you will never achieve a renewed mind with the truth of God's Word until you truly give God the truth about yourself. You must open up all the "compartments" in your soul. You do this by simply talking to God like a best friend. Tell Him all of your feelings, sins, anxieties, unforgiveness, and all of your low self-esteem. Hide nothing! He cannot show you who you are in Him, until you show Him who you are without Him. Failure to do this will keep you in bondage!
We are supposed to obtain our true identity from God through His Word.
I urge you to study the story in Numbers Chapters 13 and 14 about the Israelites and the twelve spies in the Promised Land. God had promised them the Promised Land. Only two of the twelve spies, Joshua and Caleb, had enough faith in God's Word to see themselves as victorious over their enemies. The other ten said, "There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight" (Numbers 13:33).
Satan sows seeds to produce a wrong self-image in us.
In Matthew 13:1-23 Jesus told His disciples a parable about the Word of God being planted in their hearts as a seed. He explained how it worked and how Satan tried to keep it from working. Then He explained that not only would Satan try to steal the Word out of their hearts, but that he (Satan) also was a seed sower.
"Another parable He put forth to them, saying: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way'" (Matthew 13:24-25).
Following are some facts in the Word that you should meditate on.
These facts are good seed, which will bear good fruit in your life.
1. You were hopelessly lost.
That means that someone else had to search for you. Ephesians 2:12 (a & b) says, "that at that time you were without Christ, …having no hope and without God in the world."
2. You were dead in your sins.
There is no way out for a dead man, except to receive life. Ephesians 2:1 says, "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins."
The blood Jesus shed on the Cross did more than remove and forgive your sins. Notice in these Scriptures that we only have forgiveness and redemption "IN HIM." Colossians 1:14 says, "in whom we have redemption through His blood, the remission of sins." Ephesians 1:7 says, "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace."
3. Our original "forgiveness" is often misunderstood.
Many feel that they are the same person but now Jesus has just removed, "excused," or forgiven their sins.
Wrong! You were crucified with Christ.
The first thing God did for you was to "put you" in Christ to experience a co-death with Him. Your old Adamic nature, the "first you," had no hope of being cleaned up. You had to die. The wages of sin is death. The Good News is that you did die. You were already "in Christ" when He was crucified; you just needed to discover it and believe and accept it.
4. You were already "In Christ" when the following events took place.
"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).
5. You died with Christ.
"For if we have been joined together in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection" (Romans 6:5).
6. You were buried with Christ.
"We were buried therefore with Him through Baptism into death" (Romans 6:4). "Having been buried with him in baptism" (Colossians 2:12). If you are having a difficult time with identity, I suggest memorizing Romans chapter 6. Doing that had a profound affect on my life.
7. You were made alive with Christ.
Colossians 2:13 says "And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses," Ephesians 2:5 says, "even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)."
8. You were raised with Christ. You are seated with Christ.
Ephesians 2:5-6 says, "[He God] made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus."
That is our legal standing with God today and the foundation of our legal rights. As far as the spiritual world is concerned, your position is with Christ in the heavenlies. You are in a seat of authority. Satan and your mind will tell you that you are not seated with Christ in the heavenlies, but that is a lie! You need to know that God seated you with Him while you were yet a sinner!
9. You are a new creation.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."
You might ask, "How can this be?"
Good question. God put us in Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:30 says, "But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God--and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." Being in Christ is like you were in your father and mother as a sperm and an egg. You inherited their history in your genealogy. Just imagine that you are a marker inside of a book. When the book is moved, the marker goes with it. When the book is put on the shelf, the marker goes on the shelf. If the book is burned, the marker is burned. If by some miracle the book is restored and put back on the shelf, so is the marker.
Your history, and who you in Christ is the result of the Blood Covenant with God through Jesus' death on the Cross and His resurrection.
10. You are righteous.
Righteous means to have a right standing with God. A son (or daughter) is righteous with his father by birth. He is in the family and he has a right standing that the neighbor does not have. We are righteous by our new birth, not by anything we have done. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." We are righteous because God put His life in us, not because of the way we act or live.
11. Satan's dominion over you is broken.
Satan had dominion of your old nature, but your new nature is Christ's own Spirit that has already defeated Satan. Romans 6:8-10 says, "But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that when Christ was raised from the dead, He dies no more; death no longer has dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died to sin once; but in that He lives, He lives to God." If the spirit world has had you living in fear, God will set you free right now!
Because of who you are in Christ, "bad things" no longer have power over you. Instead, you have power over them to convert them into blessings. Colossians 1:20 says, "and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross."
Why do I not feel the way these Scriptures say?
I am very glad you asked. That is an important question. It took years for you to get the world's and the "other god's" view of yourself. You were trained with a guilt, sin, fear and curse consciousness, and it will take some time to get your mind renewed to the truth. From Satan's point of view, he is trying to steal the seed of the Word out of your heart. If he puts enough pressure on you with circumstances and guilt, you may stop believing.
How do we accept this gift?
1. Make Jesus and His Word your master or Lord.
You must determine to believe the Word instead of your feelings and your old flesh patterns. You must determine to obey the Word. Obedience is integral part of believing. Romans 10:9-10 says, "that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
2. Be honest with God about your condition.
All things will be cleansed in the light, all things will be kept under bondage in the dark. You must bring your condition to the light, to Jesus in honesty. If you can agree with another person that can be powerful. However use great caution with your confidence in others!
3. Forgive others and receive your own forgiveness.
4. Accept yourself for who you are and who God created you to be.
Know that God made you his "workmanship" which is also translated "poiema" or his original one-of-a-kind poem, Ephesians 2:10.
How we treat others is a major issue.
Proverbs 14:35 "The king's favor is toward a wise servant, But his wrath is against him who causes shame."
We all need to be careful that we treat others in a way that the Lord would want us to treat them. We need to treat others with justification and not with condemnation and guilt. If we use guilt, shame and condemnation on people, even with good intentions, we are doing the work of the enemy and perhaps helping to cut of the life of God to the people we are trying to help. There may be times that the Lord would use us to help "lovingly convict" certain people for their good. I have experienced that, but one should be extremely careful to know for sure that it is the Lord who is leading this effort, lest we fall into horrible error and inflict terrible injury on another.
Cannery Row.
In John Steinbeck's book Cannery Row there is a great study about guilt and shame. Doc, as a young baseball player, had thrown a pitch, which inflicted permanent brain damage on the batter, (I forget his name, but we will call him Joe). Joe wandered the beach as a bum the rest of his life. Motivated by guilt, Doc would go out to find him to feed him and care for him. Doc was building a marine museum and almost had it finished. Once when Doc was out of town, a drunk used the place for a drunken party, broke up all his aquariums and destroyed Doc's dream. When Doc discovered that this drunk had done the damage, he immediately forgave him, knowing that putting guilt and/or shame on another being was too terribly painful, even more painful than losing his life's dream. It was amazing to see the sensitivity of not wanting to paste guilt and/or shame on another. If you have ever been delivered from guilt or shame by Jesus, you will be very sensitive to protect others from its horrible effects.
Prayer. Shame leads to self-hatred. Where there is self-hatred we must first confess and repent. "Lord, I confess the sin of self-hatred. I repent for any self-hatred I've carried in my body, soul or spirit. Please forgive me and wash me clean of all self-hatred. I bring all the old ways of thinking, believing, feeling and acting to the Cross and ask you to bring that old man to death with all its shame. Resurrect your likeness in its place. Give me Your ways of thinking, believing, feeling and acting. Renew my mind and transform my soul."
"Jesus, You are my Lord. I confess to you my guilt and shame. I bring to you what others have done to me, what I have done to others, and those deeds that I did that were sin before you. Thank you Lord for Your blood that was shed so that all of these deeds could be forgiven and removed. Thank You Lord for bearing my shame and guilt even though You did not deserve it. Thank you for being called guilty and for being shamed and abused while you were totally innocent and I was totally guilty. Now I simply believe Your Word which says that I am not condemned and that my conscience is cleansed."
"Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully" (Psalms 24:3-4).
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1 The Spiritual Man, Watchman Nee author.
2 Many references are made to Dunklin Memorial Church. We have inserted several quotes from their book Inner Healing. We give thanks to that wonderful ministry in Florida USA that has made a valuable contribution to the Body of Christ. Many of their leaders and authors are recovered addicts who now serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
Copyright * 1992 by Dunklin Memorial Church – Used by permission ISOB