Guilty! - Part 3

Friday, October 7, 2022

When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long.  Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me.  My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.  Psalm 32:3-4

If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.   1 John 1:9 ^(NRSV)

So far in this series, in part 1, we’ve looked at how Reuben and his 10 brothers were consumed with guilt over selling their youngest brother into slavery, and Peter’s well-published guilt over denying the Christ he said he’d die for.  Added to those were the contrast of the sociopathic thief on the cross next to Jesus who mocked, and the remorseful penitent who asked Jesus to remember him when Jesus entered His kingdom.  We said with Isaiah that nobody is righteous; we have all fallen short with our sins:  We feel guilty because we ARE guilty.

In part 2 we looked at how false it is to develop our ways of dealing with guilt –  denial, or blaming others for what was (clearly) our choice.  The little boy in his white Sunday suit, who was told to stay clean, chased the family pet beagle, Buster, with a can of green paint, and wound-up caught, busted…paintbrush in hand.  Peter was caught in his betrayal.  King David was nailed by a prophet’s bold accusation.  Guilt consumes us from the inside-out, and there’s no such thing as a secret sin!  There’s no wondering about where the old saying comes from:  No peace for the wicked.   

Friend, if you’re eaten-up with guilt over something and have not confessed it to God, you will never feel forgiven because you aren’t forgiven!

So…what to do?

Here are a few simple, but vital steps to take

1.  Make certain you confess your sin

Don’t rationalize (hide the evidence or shift blame)…God already knows you’re a sinner… just confess, admit it to Him and be forgiven.

2.  Be humble – learn from past mistakes

You cannot do anything about what happened yesterday, but God rejoices in your confession, and loves to forgive and rebuild you!

3.  Pray for growth to use your past for kingdom good

Stand ready to help others in the areas you’ve been blessed by forgiveness.

4.  Spend time thanking God for his blessings

This is why we have the Lord’s table…come, ye forgiven, and beloved sinners...and rejoice!  

For You Today

Guilt was never God’s intended inner profile for His human children.  That’s why He came to us in a manger, innocent, and ready to die for us, so we can be forgiven, cleansed, washed whiter than snow…and restored to fellowship with our Creator.  Don’t miss THAT!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Old Brooms & Common Sense   and   Black Ice

[1] Images:  via Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

Guilty! - Part 2

Thursday, October 6, 2022

When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long.  Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me.  My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.  Psalm 32:3-4

Dealing with understanding the issues we have with guilt is a hard, but necessary medicine.  We have all sorts of techniques for getting rid of guilt, but, underneath, we still feel guilty.  Frankly, we hardly need to have someone tell us we did wrong; we are hardwired with free will, and that is enough to help us understand the conundrum of needing forgiveness, but refusing to admit we need forgiveness.  We don’t feel forgiven because we aren’t!

When a person simply tries to get rid of guilt for the sake of trying to feel better,  trying to hide the evidence, or shift the blame, we never accomplish what we’re after.  

A little boy was dressed by his Mom in his best Sunday suit – white!  She told him to go outside and wait by the car; she’d be out in 10 minutes….and don’t get dirty!  Thirty seconds later he’d found a bucket of dark green paint and was chasing after Buster the family beagle.  Paint sloshed everywhere, but he just couldn’t catch up with Buster.  As Buster ran for the safety of the front porch, the little guy followed in hot pursuit, just as the front door swung-open wide.  As the now green-paint-covered white suit and green-haired little boy screeched to a halt, he looked up to see his angry Mom staring down at him.  Bucket in one hand, brush in the other, and beagle cowering in the porch corner, the little guy stammered, I didn’t paint Buster!

Until we deal with the source of our guilt (sin) we can never feel forgiven, because we aren’t.  It’s like an elephant in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge.  Sin stands between us and God like a dark green paint stain. 

This was Peter’s agony.  In the Gospel accounts it tells us that when Jesus’ trial ended, they took him from Pilate’s house.  Peter was hiding in the courtyard, watching from a distance.  His and Jesus’ eyes locked and Peter knew he’d denied Christ.  He went out and wept bitterly.[1]  After the resurrection ^{John 21} it is recorded that Jesus had a conversation with Peter that searched deep into Peter’s soul.  It was a simple conversation, but forced the fisherman to deal with his guilt.

In King David’s case it took the prophet Samuel looking the king square in the eyes, calling him a murdering adulterer.  Until David faced the truth about his own behavior and confessed his sin^(Ps32:5) he was never going to be free.

For You Today

When we feel guilty we often default to using excuses for why we did what we did, none of which changes what God has said about our sin.  Sin will always be dealt-with!  And it will always be on God’s terms, never our excuses or denial.  Like the “heroes” King David, Peter, and others we read about in Scripture, there is never peace in our minds or hearts, when we live in unforgiveness.

Tomorrow we’ll wrap-up where to go with our excuses, rationalizations, and denial…how guilt doesn’t have to eat us alive from the inside, like a dark green paint splash on a Sunday suit.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Waiting in Pain   and   Better Than Guilt   

[1] Images:  via Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] Mark 14:72

Guilty! - Part 1

Wednesday, October 5, 2022

We are going to deal with understanding the issue of guilt the next three days.  In Genesis^{Chapter 42} we find Joseph’s brothers, who had hated their brother, sold him into slavery, and brought the misery of decades of guilt down on their heads.  They’re discussing why they’re having a bad time, trying to understand their own guilt:

Speaking among themselves, they said, “Clearly we are being punished because of what we did to Joseph long ago.  We saw his anguish when he pleaded for his life, but we wouldn’t listen.  That’s why we’re in this trouble.”  “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy?” Reuben asked.  “But you wouldn’t listen. And now we have to answer for his blood!”  Genesis 42:21-22

Added to Joseph’s brothers (and the rest of humanity), the prime example of a man who clearly understood his own guilt was a thief dying next to Jesus.

But the other criminal protested, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die?  We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.”  Luke 23:40-41

Guilt is something that plagues everyone, like the man who wrote to the IRS; he enclosed a check for $500, with a note explaining that he couldn’t sleep because he had cheated on his income tax the year before.  At the bottom of his letter he added:  if I still can’t sleep I’ll send the rest. 

Unresolved guilt is debilitating.  It affects our health, our attitude, and productivity in life.  It also affects our worship and service. 

The basic answer to the question of why we feel guilt is that:

We feel guilty because we are guilty!

Paul tells us that everybody sins:

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.  Romans 3:23

Innocent?  We know better than to claim that when standing before holy God.  John’s epistle specifically states that if we try to claim we are not sinners we’re only deceiving ourselves.[1]

There are all sorts of techniques for our denial; the main two are:

1.   We try to hide the evidence.

Joseph’s brothers hid their sin of selling their younger brother into slavery.  But God knew all about it and eventually brought everything out in the open.  There is no such thing as “secret” sin.

2.   We try to blame others.

Of the eleven brothers who sold Joseph, Reuben (the oldest) tried to shift the blame from off his shoulders by blaming the other ten; that didn’t work for Adam and Eve either.  (If you recall, Eve blamed the serpent.  That was bad enough, but Adam blamed Eve AND God.  He said, “…it was the woman YOU made for me, Lord.”)

Now, with all our techniques for getting rid of the guilt, we still feel guilty.  And we will talk about why we don’t feel forgiven tomorrow.

For You Today

It’s tempting to use the excuses for why you did what you did.  Or, worse, to just flat-out deny that you did anything wrong, or it was less of a sin than someone else…none of that changes history in the sight of an all-knowing, and all-seeing God, who is all-righteous, and holds us accountable.  Sin will be dealt-with!  And it will always be on God’s terms, never our excuses or denial.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Clean Sweep, But Not Swept Away   and   It's Not My Fault   

[1] Images:  via Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] See 1 John 1:8

The Elephant in the Room Has Sharp Teeth

[1]

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

For I know the vast number of your sins and the depth of your rebellions.  You oppress good people by taking bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.  So those who are smart keep their mouths shut, for it is an evil time.  Do what is good and run from evil so that you may live!  Then the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies will be your helper, just as you have claimed.  Hate evil and love what is good; turn your courts into true halls of justice.  Perhaps even yet the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies will have mercy on the remnant of his people.  Therefore, this is what the Lord, the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies, says:  “There will be crying in all the public squares and mourning in every street.  Call for the farmers to weep with you, and summon professional mourners to wail.  There will be wailing in every vineyard, for I will destroy them all,” says the Lord.  What sorrow awaits you who say, “If only the day of the Lord were here!”  You have no idea what you are wishing for.  That day will bring darkness, not light.  In that day you will be like a man who runs from a lion—only to meet a bear.  Escaping from the bear, he leans his hand against a wall in his house—and he’s bitten by a snake.  Yes, the day of the Lord will be dark and hopeless, without a ray of joy or hope.  “I hate all your show and pretense—the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies.  I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings.  I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings.  Away with your noisy hymns of praise!  I will not listen to the music of your harps.  Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living.  Amos 5:12-24

Just as most people are aware elephants are not known for sharp teeth, most people would rather not think of God other than soft, warm and fuzzy.  That’s a form of denial!

Amos, the sheep herding, sycomore fig-tree farmer-turned-prophet took a walk into the capitol city of Jerusalem and saw a whole bunch of folk who loved to play politics, throw their weight around, get rich and fat, but were living in the worst form of denial.  They imagined God couldn’t see their black hearts and concluded that the idea of Judgment Day was a myth. 

In response, Amos pulled-out some images of his wilderness experience and told them unless their hearts were cleansed they’d be like a man running from a lion who stumbles into the pathway of a hungry/angry bear; escaping the bear claws by a hair, he runs to his house, slams the door shut, locks it, leans up against the wall to catch his breath, and is bitten on the neck by a lethal cobra.  Amos tells the religious fakes they’d better get their acts together, or their history would be written in their own blood…from bad – to worse – to worst!  Their future would be surrounded by darkness, wailing, and a loss of all hope.  We can live without a lot of things, but air and hope are not on that list!  Many people would rather not think about the FACT of JHWH being a sovereign God who does judge sin.  Because we’re all vulnerable to a God like that, we’d rather have a god who winks at our sins, and lets us slide…there, there, you’re ok; I know you tried.  

But God’s judgment of our behavior is more than provable.  From the beginning creation was put together with natural judgment as an incontrovertible principle:

·      Fire has always contained judgment for sticking your finger in the flames. 

·      Up always has a violent result when gravity brings you in contact with Down! 

·      And, if your mother has to tell you to take out the garbage a third time…you’ll find out what fury judgment can bring!

The most evident proof of God’s sharp-toothed elephant in the room is the cross.  Without the death of Jesus no person is forgiven, no one escapes the bar of judgment.  When it comes to justice, the kind of right behavior God expects is our unconditional love with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength…and loving our neighbor that way too![2]

For You Today

Each of us on planet earth wants a soft place to land.  God has provided that; it’s the fellowship of a close relationship with One to whom you can take all your sins, sorrows, and fears.  He forgives the heart’s confession, sets the captive free, and that’s an elephant in your room worth talking about!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com      Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
[2] Luke 10:27