But shame is a lie. Wait a minute. You just don't know how dirty I feel, how wrong and messed up. You don't understand what I've done and what I've been through. I would have felt cleaner crawling through a sewer. If you only knew the truth of my heart you would feel guilty and ashamed too! Perhaps I would feel guilty if I were in your place. Lord knows I've been guilty of much myself. There are people who proudly proclaim and advocate for the death penalty for some of the things that I have done, and had I been born in ancient Israel and lived the same way I would have been stoned to death before turning 15. I know a little about guilt.
But guilt can be appropriate and good. Shame is not. Shame is guilt gone wild and aimed at the wrong target. Shames is self centered, Guilt is about the wrong. I have done this wrong thing. This situation, activity, behavior, thinking, is wrong. I am guilty of doing something. Guilt shows us that we are in debt to right, that we have fallen short of right and good and failed to walk in love for God and others. Guilt says something must be done to make this right, to restore the damage that doing wrong has caused and to pay reparations.
Shame though is a different story. Shame is not about the sin. Shame is about me and about you. Guilt says this sin is bad. Shame says I am bad. Shame says that because I did this or this was done to me I have no worth, I am trash, I am ugly and dirty and don't have a right to anything good or beautiful or to have a useful purpose and a life worth living. I shouldn't go out in the light because I am not worthy. I should hide who I am because I am the despicable evil who deserved to have this awful thing done to me and who has done disgusting and destructive things. And most important for me to never forget is these ugly things I've done are who I am, how I define my identity and assign my value.
Guilt shows us we need a Savior. We know we can not make this right, so we see the need for someone greater than us who can, someone who can pay our debt and buy us back from the indentured servitude to death that we owe. Guilt drives us to God. We need to be made clean. He can do it. We need to be set free. He can do that. We need to be healed of our brokenness, and that's one of the reasons He came to us.
When I was a boy, I fell into a cactus that grew around the trunk of my grandmother's oak tree. It was a horrible, evil plant. I think all of my cousins got into it a time or two, but I fell completely on it. My clothes and body were completely covered in these tiny and painful needles. It hurt, and I couldn't get them off. Everything I tried only seemed to make things worse. I ran to my parents for help. They stripped me down and disposed of my clothes. It would never be possible to completely free them of the needles. I needed new clothes. Then they got a bright light so even the tiniest needles could be seen and used tweezers to slowly pull the needles from my body. I had them everywhere. It seemed I was covered from head to toe. It took time, and sometimes it hurt, but they got it. I was cactus free and happy and clothed anew.
It never occurred to me to not go to them for help. I didn't think I didn't deserve their help because had gone where I shouldn't. I didn't worry that I should stay away from them in fear of transferring the cactus needles to them. I never once identified as a cactus because I was covered in needles. In other words, while I was guilty of playing too closely to the cactus, I was not ashamed that I had fallen into it and been covered in needles as a result.
Sin in the same. We get off track. We go where we should not go and do what we should not do, and before we know it, we are in pain and covered head to toe, it even pierces us and makes its way far beneath the surface. We have fallen and there has been a consequence. This is guilt, and there is an answer. We can run to our Daddy. We don't have to be afraid that he will reject us because of what has covered us. He will simply take us in, shine a light and begin the process of removing everything that is sticking to us and in us that was not a part of His original plan for us. It may take a while, and it might even be a little scary and painful at times, but it's so worth it. Because when He is through, we will be free, even below the surface, of the pain and harmful destructive barbs of sin. In addition to the restoration, there is complete and total forgiveness for the things we did. The damages and debt have been paid. We owe nothing. Realizing that Daddy loves us, that we are being transformed from covered in and pierced by sin to righteous and new and that all damages and debts have been paid frees us from guilt. Not because of some positive thinking or philosophy, but because guilt has been satisfied; justice has been served. It's just that someone else picked up our tab.
Shame though tells us we are now cacti. The sin that covered and pierced us in now who we are. We dare not go into Daddy's house. We may mess it up. We dare not ask Him for help. We are not worthy of it. We should not be forgiven and cleansed and restored because we deserve the pain for getting into the cactus or for allowing ourselves to be pushed into it. And we better not get too close to anyone else either, or they will get stuck and hurt by the protruding needles. Shame makes us hide from God and isolate from others. Shame is Satan's way of trying to prevent restoration of relationship with us and to prevent us from being happy, joyous and free. It is evil, and it is all based on the lie that says there is no help for us.
If you are filled with guilt, the answer is in relationship with Jesus. It's not about religion or being good from here on out and somehow balancing the scales of the past. It's about getting married to a Groom who loves you and is more than happy to pay off your debt so that you can enjoy your life together. If you've met this Jesus, who went above and beyond to seek you out and marry you, then let go of your pride already. Pride? Yes, pride. The pride that says I pay my own way. I don't let anyone else pay my debts and I don't take charity. Stop trying to pick up the check. You can't afford it, and besides, Jesus already paid it while you weren't looking. There's no reason to pay twice, and there's no reason to hold onto guilt that has already been satisfied.
Shame though needs to be rebuked and the lie rejected. The Groom says you are worth of every drop of blood, sweat and tears it took to pay off what you owed and that He did it gladly, with joy. The Groom says that you are a treasure that was worth giving up all He had in order to attain and retain. The Groom says you are beautiful and lovely. The Groom says shame is full of....lies. So the question for today is who are you going to believe? The liar who has only made you feel worthless and hopeless and overwhelmed or the Love that will give everything and anything just to have you with Him and to see you smile?
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