You deserve to find freedom from guilt and shame
Hey, there. This is the first in a series of what I’m going to call Freedom Fridays. It’s just quick and one little thought for the day. And the reason I’m doing this is because I’ve talked to a lot of people lately, and they’re carrying around this guilt and shame they have felt for years. It’s time to find freedom from guilt and shame.
Jesus did not want us to be walking around feeling guilty and shamed all the time. He said, you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free. Well, that’s part of the purpose of these Freedom Fridays is to give you a little nugget to help you feel free from the sins and the mistakes you’ve made and the guilt and the shame you may feel from that or from something that someone did to you or some circumstances, whatever it is.
So this may not apply to you. You may not be carrying around a big burden of guilt. So don’t feel like you need to listen if this doesn’t apply to you.
But I know a lot of people have been reaching out for help on this, so I just wanted to do something a little extra. It’s kind of casual. I want you to feel like I’m just talking to you over the phone and we’re just having a conversation. So these will be coming out on Fridays each week, and this is episode 312.
You can find freedom from guilt and shame
So here’s the question I want to talk about quickly today. And I get this a lot from people. How do I get over the shame and the guilt I feel from my sins?
Well, there’s so many ways to kind of jump on the merry go round with this. But I would say the first thing or one of the first things that’s really helpful is to take an honest look at yourself. Be true to yourself.
Usually you know what you’ve done or you know what somebody else has done that makes you feel guilty or ashamed, that sort of thing. So just take an honest look at that and quit blaming other people, quit blaming yourself, and quit blaming circumstances, whatever they are. They’re all external factors.
We always find excuses. Stop finding excuses. Accept full responsibility for what you did or for what you didn’t do that you should have, whatever it may be, even if you didn’t know any better at the time.
That can be an excuse, too: “Oh, well, I didn’t know any better.” That’s an excuse.
Freedom from guilt begins with accepting responsibility
Say, “Okay, I made a mistake. I didn’t even realize I was making a mistake, but I accept responsibility for it.”
That kind of clears the air. And that’s an important step here.
Now, I want to share something that’s been really helpful to me and a lot of people I’ve worked with.
One time I was teaching a Bible class in my prison ministry, and I asked everybody there if they had ever played in the mud when they were kids.
One lady said, “Well, yeah, but one time my kids were playing in the mud, and my son was covered from head to toe with mud. I didn’t even recognize him.”
I said, “Well, what did you do?”
The mud was not part of him
She said, “Well, I just got the garden hose and squirted him down. It took 10 or 15 minutes. And then I took him inside and put him in the bathtub and we scrubbed him up.”
My next question was, “Well, now, do you still have that mud? Did you save that mud? Did you put that mud back on him after you got it off?”
And of course she said, “No.”
I said, “Did you make a little memorial to all that mud?”
She said, “No, of course not.”
I said, “You can probably laugh about it now that he fell in the mud, but was the mud ever part of him?”
And she said, “Of course not. We cleaned it off.”
Sin is not part of you either
And I said, “That’s exactly the way sin is. Now, a lot of people think and identify themselves as a sinner. Well, once you do that, you’re saying, I’m mud.”
Think of this sin and the shame and the guilt as mud. Layers of mud, sometimes many layers of mud. Well, the mud is never part of you. The sin is never part of who you really are as the image and likeness of God.
That’s the way God originally made you in his image and likeness. And so that mud is not part of God’s image and likeness, and that’s why it can be washed away. So use that analogy to make that separation between you as a child of God and the sins that you committed.
Yeah, you committed those sins, or people did those things to you. You participated, either knowingly, ignorantly, whatever it was, those things happened. You can’t change that fact. But they never were part of your identity.
Now, of course, there’s so many parts to finding freedom from guilt and shame. One of those is forgiving yourself, forgiving the other people that may have harmed you. And we’re going to talk a lot more about forgiveness in more of these Freedom Friday episodes going forward. But I want you to think about this. I want you to really think deeply about this analogy about the mud.
The mud is not part of you, and your sins are not part of your identity as a child of God.
Photo credit: Mohamed Nohassi
_____________
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and church mentor. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by learning to think, pray, and love like Jesus. Contact him here.
Make a donation to support the show
Listen and leave a review on
