Welcome to part 3 of Healing, Faith, Facts and Feelings. The last few weeks we’ve explored the foundation of faith, the reason behind why we can trust in God’s healing; and we also saw how God’s facts can and should change our perspective of our circumstances.
Now today we deal with the most destructive feelings of all guilt, shame, and condemnation.
Three Deadly Lies
Many Christians have a kind of love/hate relationship with guilt, shame, and condemnation. It’s strange, but a vast number of Christians I have spoken with, have this idea that they must maintain a particular level of guilt, shame, and even condemnation to remain humble and balanced.
And this is why I call guilt, shame, and condemnation the three deadly lies, because they have spiritually (and sometimes physically) destroyed people’s lives.
Those of you who’ve been with me for years, know that the topic I discuss most often is your spiritual identity in Christ Jesus; and this really is the key. These three deadly lies of guilt, shame, and condemnation strike at the heart of your spiritual identity, sabotaging your confidence, security, and status, and that is why guilt, shame, and condemnation are so damaging.
Numerous church groups and religious organizations hold to some form of legalism, and a self-reliant mentality which focuses on human performance and behavior. The pride of mankind gravitates toward this kind of thinking— we want to believe that we can accomplish perfection if we try hard enough, and because we believe this, it feeds into the guilt and shame when we fail, which leads to self-condemnation; and this, my friend, can be deadly.
I know people who have manifested physical sickness in their body because they were under extreme guilt, shame, and condemnation… and the way out of that pit, was the gospel of Jesus Christ, which the deadly lies of guilt, shame, and condemnation attack.
Attacks on the Gospel
The root of the gospel (good news) is Jesus Christ and what He has accomplished through His death, burial, and resurrection. Most Christians understand that Christ is the foundation, but only on a superficial level. Many of the people I interact with both in-person and online, struggle with the idea of internalizing and personalizing what Christ’s sacrifice means for them and for their spiritual identity. And the nearly universal reason why realizing their spiritual identity in Christ is so challenging, is that these people are almost always burdened with guilt, shame, and condemnation, which erects and artificial barrier between them and God.
Guilt, shame, and condemnation launch their attacks on the gospel by fundamentally undermining the finished work of Jesus Christ. Let’s explore this further.
One of the primary goals and effect of Jesus’ sacrifice was to completely remove your sin, and sanctify you (make you holy and set apart for God) once and for all, by the perfect offering of Jesus Christ. (Hebrews 10:1-10); these truths are precisely what guilt, shame, and condemnation attack.
Anti-Gospel False Identity
The question we need to ask, is:
Who do these lies of guilt, shame, and condemnation say that I am, versus who does God say that I am in Christ?
And that last part of in Christ is crucial. Before the sacrifice of Christ, outside of Him, we are all filthy, rotten scoundrels, and dead in our sin. Yet many Christians still view themselves as-if they are still outside of Christ, still pre-cross — and guilt, shame, and condemnation plays a large part in that false perspective.
Whereas Christ died to forgive you from sin, and release you from the curse and power of it, guilt tries to tell you that you’re not forgiven. It’s anti-Christ, because it’s against what Christ accomplished on the cross for you.
Shame is similar. Where Christ died to change your spiritual identity and give you a new life in Him, shame keeps you living in the past, and identifying with your old identity, telling you that you are still dirty, still unloved, still a sinner (some religious institutions preach that!) It’s anti-Christ, because it denies the reality of the new birth into Him.
Condemnation, like the others, keeps you bound in judgment, driving a wedge between you and God by keeping you conscious of God’s wrath and punishment, while denying His mercy. It’s anti-Christ because it opposes the truth that Jesus bore God’s wrath and punishment in your place on the cross. (1st Peter 2:24)
Repentance
The Christian life is not one of religious rules or the traditions of men, in-fact the scripture warns against such things in Colossians 2:8. Rather, the Christian life is about repentance, which contrary to popular opinion does not mean to apologize with weeping and wailing or great inner loathing.
I’ve known Christians who cry every day— not because they are in awe of what Jesus did… but because they feel guilty, ashamed, and condemned about what they have done. They are permanently parked in a self-conscious dungeon, and again, it is anti-Christ.
True biblical repentance is to alter what you think and believe, in a very specific way… regarding the gospel, good news of Jesus Christ. The word “repent” in Greek is Μετάνοια, a compound of two words: Μετά (change) and νοια (mind). Literally, change of mind.
Now, on the surface, this is an incomplete directive. We need to know precisely how our mind and thinking should be changed.. from what, to what, and Jesus gives us the answer in Mark 1:15, where He says:
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent, and believe the gospel.
Mark 1:15
So we can clearly see that Jesus gives us a straightforward instruction to repent, to change change our mind, but He doesn’t leave it there. Jesus tells us exactly how to go about this, by saying repent [change your mind] and believe the gospel.
Believe the good news about what He has accomplished, about your new spiritual identity as a righteous, sanctified, reborn new creation, that is completely holy — not because you earned it by your own merit, but because that’s exactly who Jesus made you to be by His sacrifice!
You’ll be amazed at the changes you see when you start truly owning your new spiritual identity in Christ. When you shed the dead weight of religion, and legalism, with it’s guilt, shame, and condemnation, and embrace the reality of who you are in Christ.
I look forward to thriving with you again.
Be blessed.