Sit
212. Guilt – enemy
or friend?
Shame; the
counterfeit.
We
all have heard about guilt. Most
Christians have heard that guilt is not something that is healthy, but so many of
them 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? I
think the answer is yes to both.
What some call “false guilt” is actually shame.
What
is guilt?
Vine’s
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 big
verb is bound, bondage like one who cannot even obtain bail during the trial,
imprisoned.
Justified
is the opposite of guilty. Justification comes from Jesus but is
confirmed in the courtroom of God while we are standing and confessing the Word
against the antagonist Satan who is trying to steal our justification. Even
though Jesus justified us, we cannot stand during our trials if we are under
guilt. 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.
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. “Speaking
lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron” (1
Timothy 4:2).
“To
the pure all things are pure: but
to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled”
(Titus 1:15).
Even
when we are earnestly trying to walk in the Spirit we can get tired of
repenting for the same issues over and over again, and we can be paralyzed by
guilt. This is Satan’s
scheme.
Guilt is good.
God did not make a mistake
when it comes to guilt. Guilt comes from what we believe we did
wrong, breaking rules or laws. Guilt does not condemn us as bad people it only
convicts us that what we did was 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, but 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.
What does guilt do?
If it is not dealt with
according to God’s plan, guilt
builds up a wall and blocks your contact with God. It is difficult to hear Him speak. It is difficult to pray, and 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. “For godly
sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the
sorrow of the world produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:10).
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.
Shame is disguised as
guilt.
It
is a counterfeit of guilt perpetrated by Satan. Evil people and satanic beings have
learned how to use this gift of guilt 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 it is guilt.
Shame
builds a horrible wall between God and us just as guilt does. We cannot have
intimacy with Him, our conscience feels condemned and our intuition is put out
of order. We are 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 intimate in
marriage.
Here
are some of the attributes of shame.
Shame
has no resolution; one cannot repent for anything because shame is not about
what one did, it is about who one is.
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, don’t tell anybody,” it is a painful internal
feeling. Shame tells you that you
are useless, inadequate, worthless, valueless, dirty, never good enough, no
good, bad, alienated, abandoned, damaged, different, defective, alone, and
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 cannot be “fixed” because it’s about who we are, not about what
we did.
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, sometimes on purpose, sometimes
innocently. Have you ever heard
these shame statements?
Shame on you. |
You cannot be honest. |
Do not get upset. |
Act like a nice girl. |
Don’t cry. |
Don’t betray the family. |
Be good. |
Be seen and not heard. |
Be nice. |
You did that after all I have done for you? |
Be a man; act like a lady. |
You make me sick. |
Avoid conflict at all costs. |
You are doing that same old thing again. Won’t you ever change? |
Shame can be transmitted by sexual abuse. It does
not even need to have been a physical abuse; simple emotional abuse will bring
shame.
Sexual promiscuity will bring guilt and shame.
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. 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.
Good
news for “bad” people. We have
been justified!
“Much
more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath
through Him” (Romans 5:9).
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.
You will become addicted to His presence.
Once you have tasted the fresh clean breeze of being cleansed by Jesus
from guilt and shame, you will become addicted to Him. The result will be that you will
continually come to Him and He will continually keep you cleansed. Living in
His sharp and awesome presence will keep the Word of God alive to you, it will
keep His will to be your will and you will worship Him in Spirit and in truth. Do not allow guilt and shame to keep
you from the weight of HIS glory!
God’s plan is for us to be in such close touch with Him that He may
lead us through our intuition, that our communion with Him will be fresh and
real based upon that fact that our conscience is cleansed by His blood. Ministers of all types are a gift from
God, however, God wants you to hear Him for yourself.
Look at what Hebrews 8:10-12 says about the New Covenant. Basically it says that because our sin
is taken away, as well as our guilt and shame, that we may KNOW the Lord for
ourselves. “For this is the
covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the
LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I
will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother,
saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the
greatest of them. For I will be
merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I
will remember no more” (Hebrews 8:10-12).
Our Pastor Emeritus 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 are paralyzed by guilt or shame. If it is guilt, then simply repent,
confess your sins, ask God to help you to hate them, and He will cleanse you and
forgive you. You will then be free
to sense His presence and move on to maturity.
If it is shame, then appropriate the blood of Jesus and its cleansing
power to wash you as white as snow.
Jesus took our place so as
to eliminate both guilt and shame.
“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” (Isaiah 53:11).
We were guilty, we did commit the crime of sin,
separation and disobedience, but Jesus kept the law and yet was judged guilty
for our crime, He went to jail, nay, to the Cross for us. He was judged guilty
when He was innocent so we could be judged innocent even while guilty, provided
we accept the transfer. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that
we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Jesus bore our shame on the Cross.
“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).
Jesus offered Himself to shame for you and for me so we could be
free.
“but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant,
and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He
humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of
the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name
which is above every name” (Philippians 2:7-9).
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.
“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” (Hebrews 12:2).
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).
Condemnation is a sense of final judgment coming from guilt and
shame.
“There is therefore now no condemnation [judgment leading to guilt or
shame] to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the
flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1-2).
Walking in the Spirit simply means to live an honest life before Jesus,
knowing that His law is in our hearts, having a heart to obey Him and live
right, and when we fall short simply confessing our sin and going on.
Forgiveness takes away both guilt and shame. To forgive is to cut away and remove. Guilt and shame both leave stains on
one’s spirit and soul, and perhaps it is even experienced on the body. Forgiveness removes that stain.
Justification
by the blood of Jesus will cleanse your conscience.
Conscience
is a function of the spirit, but it will also cleanse your soul and body.
Hebrews
10:16-23 says, “‘This is the
covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put
My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,’ then He adds,
‘Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.’ Now where there is remission of these,
there is no longer an offering for sin. Therefore, brethren, having boldness to
enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He
consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High
Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full
assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience [guilt
and shame] and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the
confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”
Hebrews
9:14 says, “how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal
Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God?”
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, or in other words, Jesus as Lord. 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!
Cleansed by light.
“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world [put
guilt or shame on the world with judgment], but that the world through Him
might be saved. He who believes in
Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because
he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the
light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because
their deeds were evil. For
everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest
his deeds should be exposed” (John 3:17-20).
3. Forgive others
and receive your own forgiveness.
4. Accept yourself for who you are, knowing
that God made you his “workmanship” which is also translated “poiema” or his
original one-of-a-kind poem, Ephesians 2:10.
The Israelites in
Nehemiah’s days are an example of guilt and shame turning into joy.
Nehemiah
chapter 8 tells us that Ezra was reading the Law, the Torah, to the Israelites
for the first time in a long while.
They began to weep. I
believe that they were coming under conviction for their sin, which is what the
Law is supposed to do. However,
they were feeling guilt and/or shame because they had not totally understood
the Torah.
This was the Day of Atonement, the day of fasting, humility and
repentance. However, as it is
stated in Leviticus 23:26-44, this only lasted for five days, then came the
Feast of Tabernacles, wherein a party was held with rejoicing.
This is why Nehemiah, along with Ezra and the priests, needed to
interpret Scripture and teach about the lamb (Lamb) who took away their sins,
guilt, and shame. They probably
spoke about the guilt offering, the scapegoat who took their sins into a deep
pit never to be dug up again. He
told them to go obtain good “fat laden steak,” some sweet drink and have a
party in order to celebrate this good news. Then he told them, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Scriptures from Nehemiah.
“Now all the people gathered together as one man in the open square
that was in front of the Water Gate; and they told Ezra the scribe to bring the
Book of the Law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded Israel. So Ezra the
priest brought the Law before the assembly of men and women and all who could
hear with understanding on the first day of the seventh month. Then he read
from it in the open square that was in front of the Water Gate from morning
until midday, before the men and women and those who could understand; and the
ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law” (Nehemiah 8:1-3).
“And Nehemiah, who was the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and
the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, ‘This day is holy to
the LORD your God; do not mourn nor weep.’ For all the people wept, when they
heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat,
drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for
this day is holy to our LORD. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the LORD is your
strength.’ So the Levites quieted all the people, saying, ‘Be still, for the day
is holy; do not be grieved.’ And all the people went their way to eat and
drink, to send portions and rejoice greatly, because they understood the words
that were declared to them” (Nehemiah 8:9-12).
Justification
or guilt?
A
justified person has joy. If you
were the accused in a court of law, and then you heard the “not guilty”
verdict, I know that you would have joy!
If all your sins are taken away from you, then all you have coming are
blessings and no curses. If you
are holding your sins, or if the Lamb had not been offered for them, then all
you have coming are curses and no blessings.
The opposite of this condition is guilt or shame. When one experiences guilt or shame
then he/she knows for sure that only evil and curses are coming. It is a horrible feeling. It is something that is built into your
psyche by God.
Joy comes from knowing that your hope and expectations are only
blessings. In
Scripture, joy seems to be the result of having your guilt and shame removed.
The joy of the Lord comes from God’s unconditional and amazing
love that He, our King would die for us!
Ezra read the law to the Israelites and they felt guilty, until
Nehemiah explained that this was the Day of Atonement and that it is a
celebration, so that the joy of the Lord is their strength.
You must have joy to make it through to your overcoming promise
no matter how bad things look.
Guilt or shame will make you think that God has forgotten you and that
you are not in contact with Him.
In Matthew 25, there were five wise and five foolish virgins. The foolish gave up while waiting for
their Lord to return (and I add, with their overcoming promise). The difference was their supply of oil,
or Holy Spirit level, or their joy.
In order to inherit our promises we must often wait a long time, and joy
is the ingredient that will give us strength for standing longer than we think
we can. The wise virgins knew the
character of their Lord; the foolish did not have enough revelation to give
them joy.
How
we treat others is a major issue.
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
off the life of God from 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.
Jesus does not put shame
on us.
“If any of you lacks wisdom,
he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it
will be given to him” (James 1:5, NIV).
The Amplified version says, “without reproaching, or faultfinding.”
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, using 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.
Ruth and Boaz.
Notice Boaz’s heart when he
wanted to feed Ruth. First, he did
not give her charity, but rather allowed her to glean in his fields. Then, he told his men to make sure to
allow her to glean not just in the corners of the field, but even among the
sheaves. Finally, he instructed
his men to make sure that they did not inflict shame on Ruth as she was going
about this task.
“And
when she rose up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, ‘Let her glean
even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her’” (Ruth 2:15). The word for reproach in Hebrew is
shame, the same word used when describing that Jesus bore our shame.
2 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” (Psalm 24:3-4).