Shame, Guilt, and Jesus Christ

Have you ever wondered why you do the things you do?  Have you ever had the experience of closely walking with Christ, when all of a sudden your flesh takes over and you engage in an activity that brings guilt and shame?  Do you often feel that you do the things you don’t want to do, and can’t seem to do the things you want to do?  If so, you are in good company.

Paul said in Romans 7 (The Message Translation):

^14-16I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.
 ^17-20But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
 ^21-23It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
 ²⁴I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?
 ²⁵The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

Within each of us is a God compass.  His Law is written on each person’s heart.  People have an inherent sense of good and evil.  They have a voice within them that tells them right and wrong.  Some choose to suppress that voice.  Others pick and choose, they negotiate and validate behaviors.  And others obsess over their inability to adhere to that internal sense of right and wrong.  They choose to flog themselves with the proverbial whip of guilt and shame.  Each of these paths bring death.  None of these paths lead to Kingdom living.  It is why we see much of the world, and those within church buildings living outside of the gates of the Kingdom of God.  They are living in the cursed Hinnom Valley (Gehenna), where there is a weeping and gnashing of teeth.  The burden of shame and guilt keeps their eyes focused on themselves, and they can’t abide in relationship with Christ.  They believe God is pushing them away.  They believe they are worthless, unimportant and unlovable.

 None of this is true.  God loves us just as we are, blemishes, warts and all.  It is the shame and guilt involved in the violation of God’s Law written on our hearts that keeps us from relationship.  In our feelings of unworthiness we begin to wallow in self.  Our eyes focus inward and we become ineffective in the Kingdom.  We begin to hold ourselves to standards of perfection and we grow spiritually sick.  It’s merely another form of egocentric behavior.   
This is just part of life.  The flesh is a tool of the sanctification process.  The flesh is intricately involved in the education of our spirits.  At times we are supposed to feel torn, confused, divided, this is the threshing process.  It separates the wheat from chaff.  It divides that which is of God, and that which needs destroyed and burned within us.  When we sin, God doesn’t gasp in disbelief.  We don’t surprise God with our sinfulness.  Your past, present, and future sin has been bought and paid for in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.   When Jesus said, “It is finished”, we should believe Him.   Only a sacrifice of this magnitude could heal our broken, guilt laden, and shamed spirits.

So what is the solution?  Our fleshly egos must be broken upon God’s Law.  We must be fully convinced just as Paul was convinced that we have nothing within us that can adhere to God’s Law.   Within this beautiful and painful breaking process we become convinced that we are not God.  We become convinced that when we run our own lives, we run them into the ground.  We hit a spiritual bottom.  And from that bottom we become teachable.  Our egos are broken, and our eyes focus on the only solution and that is Jesus Christ.  In that beautiful abandon of self we become aware of who we are in Christ.  We learn to forgive and love ourselves.  We begin a process of accepting our weaknesses, and we learn to boast about our weaknesses.  In our weaknesses, God is made strong.  He begins to use our vices and failures to teach us about ourselves, others and Him.   In these weaknesses, we learn compassion.  Those we used to judge, we now love.  Those we once rejected, we now embrace.  We no longer have to rise above, or hide below the multitudes.  We no longer feel the need to hide our true selves from others.  Our masks come off, and within this those around us feel comfortable removing their masks.  We find freedom, liberty and shackles of ego, guilt, and shame are broken.

Today, I implore you to focus your eyes upon Christ and begin the process of forgiving yourself.  And while each of us should search our own actions, motivations, and behaviors we should not obsess over our failures.  We are to acknowledge our weaknesses and give them to our Savior, who is the author and perfecter of our faith.  Within this we will find the easy yoke, and the light burden of Christ.