| Whatsoever
Things Are True
by Dan Coburn Pastor, Emmanuel Baptist Church pastordan@mtida.net How we respond to guilt is determined by our view of God. Right response; wrong response. You can’t respond in a Godly way, apart from Christ-Romans 8:7. “The carnal mind is not subject to Gods’ law, neither can it be”. Guilt eats away at us by giving us constant reminders of how we have wronged someone. Why does it bother us so? Why can’t we just “get over it”? Because God “hard wired” us so that we cannot go on “status-quo” with a guilt problem. We can go on, but not as usual. So what do we do? Any one of Four Things to deal with it. 1) Do away with the standard that makes us feel guilty. Atheists and Agnostics don’t have an intellectual problem with God. In fact they agree with most of His teachings and will even quote to you the scriptures. A) do away with or question the authority or standard of the Word of God. If I can beat down the standards of God, and rob Him of some of His authority, then maybe my guilt will recede. We then focus it on God, and since He is not available, God’s people. After all, it’s usually us that points out sin. We have to 2nd Corr. 5: 19 “To wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation”. Proverbs 3: 5-7= “trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths” 2) Ignore, suppress, or subdue. Burry it. Drugs and alcohol? Effects Everything. People with more hang ups than a Telemarketer. 3) Blame. Picture a set of balance scales. God is the God of the own up. "But He did this–But She said that" —this is the natural way to deal with guilt. Affaire, stealing, cheating, cheating on forms, poaching? Ultimately, we don’t take responsibility for our actions. 4) God’s Way, and experience His healing Forgiveness. First we need to understand guilt, and how it works. Let’s categorize guilt. At least two categories. 1, Helpful Guilt. What? The right kind of guilt is a Gift Of God. That which is generated by the Holy Spirit. John 16: 8 in the niv says “When He comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment. Or will expose the guilt of the world”. Guilt is to the soul, what pain is to the body. Would it be good if our body no longer felt any pain? Guilt says to a sinful dying world, that Something is desperately wrong. But because we live in a society that sees all guilt as Bad, and all that matters is your self esteem, we must do away with all guilt. 2 harmful guilt from satan. Not all guilt is good, and not all the same. Next week, we will look at Harmful Guilt, and spend some time on how to tell the difference. For now, maybe God gave you guilt for a reason. It's not enough to be as good as the crowd; God doesn't grade on a curve. God bless. |
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