Good morning all!
Here’s another look into the inner workings of my head, I hope that I made correct conclusions about these issues, let me know what you think. The topic is Guilt. This has been an issue in my life for as long as I can remember. Through our ministry here and my teaching of English classes and building relationships with people both in and out of my YETI family, it really brought this issue to the forefront.
So, for many parts of my life including the last 2 months I have felt guilty about a number of things; not doing enough, settling for second best, not saying the right thing at the right time, not praying enough, not loving enough, not running enough, not joking enough, not reading enough of the Bible, and the list goes on… And on top of all these feelings of guilt I didn’t even know God’s take on guilt. Is there Godly guilt that spurs us to improve our relationship with Him? Is some guilt of God?
So last week I came to a desperate point. I needed answers, and ones that didn’t just scratch the surface but actually got to the root of the problem. So I asked God, some of these questions from the previous paragraph. And what I got was blatantly that guilt is not from God.
Hebrews 10:22 “let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience…”
By feeling guilty I was taking my sin, or the sins of others, upon myself. I was not trusting that Jesus Christ had already made atonement, once and for all, on the cross. Now if that’s not the root, I don’t know what is!
Isaiah 6:7 “…see, this has touched your lips: your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
Then this reminded me of something I read a little while ago about Godly sorrow vs. Worldly sorrow. Godly sorrow being God-centered over sin and manifests itself in repentance and the experience of divine grace. Worldly sorrow is self-centered sorrow over the painful consequences of sin.
2 Cor. 7:10 “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”
My feelings about any one of these issues that I had guilt for did not have a good or edifying manifestation, just me feeling horrible and frustrated, but striving forward to what God ahs for me and repenting all along the way is trust and faith, THAT IS LIFE! That’s what I want!
