My Guilt Is Killing Me
Guilt. We all deal with it and have since the first humans experienced overpowering guilt and shame several millennia ago.
WHAT INTRODUCED GUILT AND SHAME INTO OUR STORY?
Created Guiltless
In Genesis one and two we read that God created all things by speaking them into existence. Yet it adds that he uniquely formed the first man with his own hands out of the dust of the ground, and then breathed his very life into him. He later fashioned the first woman from the man’s rib. The Bible also says God created them in his very image and likeness. He then gave all humanity, including you and me the mandate to rule and care for this earth as he would, as his co-regents. Identity, relationship, purpose, and fulfillment. Guiltless.
God declared them and us the pinnacle of his creation.
The garden he place them in was beautiful beyond imagination and included everything they would need and everything that was was good and pleasing. Here they experienced God’s very best – safety, peace, and gladness, with a life free from danger, fear, anxiety, sorrow, grief, pain, guilt, and shame. God joined them in the garden and spent precious time with them.
Within this beautiful garden God planted a tree called “The Knowledge of Good and Evil” and allowed access for a serpent. Both were harmless if left alone, but were in the garden to offer the man and woman the freedom to choose or reject God (no robots). God gave them one rule out of all the “yes’s” he offered, along with his explicit instructions to never eat from that tree. If they did, they would die.
Guilt introduced
In Genesis three we read that one day as the woman walked in the garden, the serpent came along and pointed out that tree and inferred that she and her husband Adam were missing out, and that one tree would enlighten them to all their Creator had withheld.
Adam and Eve already enjoyed God’s every good gift and safety, so the only thing that tree could offer was the knowledge of evil, which was the serpent’s specialty. In the original language, “evil” implies not only the construct of evil but everything that goes with it. Pain, suffering, hopelessness, guilt, shame, broken bodies, broken minds, foreign reasoning, all leading to a broken world. But this couple had never experienced such things, and so the serpent knew his only opportunity to gain their allegiance was to cause them to doubt God’s goodness, long for what they didn’t understand, and entice them to taste the pleasures evil offered. The serpent still counts on our naivety.
The Bible states that the woman believed the serpent and enticed her husband to also eat from the fruit. Immediately their eyes were opened to evil and they realized they were naked. Evil twisted what had been good, destroyed their innocence, and repictured view of themselves, their relationship with their Creator and one another. They sewed fig leaves to cover their guilt and shame and then hid from the only one who could help them.
Nothing has changed, has it?
MERCY FOR GUILT
God found the man and woman hiding and called them to himself. He questioned them, they blamed everything but themselves, and eventually confessed. He told them what they would have to face because of their choice, yet in hope also declared that one day he would send a Redeemer who would make all things right. This Redeemer would also destroy the serpent who had deceived them. God didn’t abandon them to their guilt.
GOD COVERED THEIR GUILT AND SHAME
If you read Genesis 3:21, you’ll notice that God didn’t do what most of us would do. After confronting them and offering hope, he removed their attempt to cover their guilt and shame, and clothed them. God killed an animal he had created for good things, took its skin, and covered his children. This was the first sacrifice to pay for sin. His love for his children was immense. It still is.
WHO IS THIS REDEEMER PROMISED TO RID US OF OUR GUILT?
There is a prophesy in Isaiah 53:2-6 in the Old Testament that beautifully describes this Redeemer and how he would rid you and me from guilt.
The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.
We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,
on him, on him. (MSG)
JESUS OFFERS US AN EXCHANGE FROM GUILT TO GUILTLESS
Kindness, mercy, and grace isn’t what we expect, is it? We assume judgement and condemnation because that is what we deserve. But God’s love is so great and his compassion so tender toward you and me that his heart would always rather offer to redeem us rather than condemn us in our guilt.
Our Creator sent his Son to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves. Jesus became a man yet remained fully God, lived guiltlessly before God, and chose to pay for our guilt by sacrificing himself on our behalf. His payment:
- Cleanses us from our guilt and shame
- Breathes his Spirit within us
- Makes us brand new creatures in Jesus
- Destroys the hold of sin and death that was killing us
His Spirit within us makes the exchange from death to life, darkness to light, evil to restored good (God’s righteousness) in a split second when we choose to entrust ourselves to this Redeemer and his offer of new life. Yet change also happens over time as we yield to his work within us. We never have to grunt out change. We only yield to his gentle voice and direction as he makes the changes within us. Not religious zeal, but contented restoration of guiltless relationship.
Today, he’s offering you this exchange. Your guilt for his righteousness. Living in God’s rightness takes us back to the place where we can experience the same goodness and guiltlessness that Adam and Eve left behind when they rebelled. The same peace, gladness, safety, hope, and freedom from guilt and shame that killed us inside.
That’s his gift to you, but you must be willing to receive both him and his gift. It’s your choice.
If you ask Jesus to make this exchange, he promises that you will no longer live in condemnation. Guiltless. Read that verse in Romans again. New creations in Jesus Christ don’t have to get bogged down any longer in the vicious cycle of sin and the death that brings about guilt and shame.
This is God’s offer to you. Right now.
May I pray for you?
Lord God, I am so tired of the guilt and shame. I’m tired of the endless cycle of attempting to cover myself but only ending up naked and ashamed once again. I have really messed my life up by __________________________ (you fill in the blank) and need a Redeemer, a savior. Would you make me new? I want to experience being made guiltless because of Jesus. Please. I give my life to you and will follow Jesus the rest of my days in gratitude for what you are about to do in me. In Jesus’ name, amen.
If you aren’t ready for that prayer, my I suggest this one?
“Dear God, I’m not certain I can believe all Robin says, or what your Bible says. But I am willing to say, ‘If you are real, and if all this is true, then reveal yourself to me. If you are real, I want to know you and experience all your Bible says. And if you do, I’ll serve you the rest of my days.'”
I’m still praying for you. Love, Robin
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