Feeling Guilt
Guilt is an insidious thing.
It chains us to our past, it eats away at us. It torments and never goes away. With time, we may learn to keep it at bay, but it’s still there deep down. Festering.
Or maybe it’s close to the surface, and we think about the cause over and over. Maybe it keeps us awake at night, tearful. Maybe we fear being judged.
Last night, a group of us from church talked about this. It was a powerful thing for me when I first came to know God – liberation from guilt and condemnation. That whatever wrong I had done was ultimately against God, and only He had both the right and the power to forgive. And more than this, that He so readily wants to. The Lord is compassionate and gracious; slow to anger and rich in love Psalm 103:8.
He gave His Son to pay for what you and I have done wrong. When I understood that and then allowed myself to receive it, I was free.
And that’s the thing we talked about. We may know that what Jesus did is the basis for our forgiveness and our freedom from guilt, but have we received it. Have we let God minister healing to us? Has the burden been lifted?
Forgiving ourselves must flow from God’s forgiveness if we are to feel freedom. If Jesus has paid the price, why are we still paying it?
It is finished, Jesus said as He shed His blood on the cross for you and for me. Let that be true of any guilt or condemnation we are holding onto.
