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 Rough Road Home

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

God says, “Rebuild the road!  Clear away the rocks and stones so my people can return from captivity.”  The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this:  “I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble.  I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.  For I will not fight against you forever; I will not always be angry.  If I were, all people would pass away—all the souls I have made.  I was angry, so I punished these greedy people.                        I withdrew from them, but they kept going on their own stubborn way.  I have seen what they do, but I will heal them anyway!  I will lead them.  I will comfort those who mourn, bringing words of praise to their lips.  May they have abundant peace, both near and far,” says the Lord, who heals them.  “But those who still reject me are like the restless sea, which is never still but continually churns up mud and dirt.  There is no peace for the wicked,” says my God.  Isaiah 57:14-21

The prophet reaches into the psyche of every wanderer; thoughts of home seep into every waking moment of silence.  This part of Isaiah’s comforting word to God’s people, in captivity because they strayed from God’s ways, opens the possibility of return.  It’s a rough road home, but God is the one with peace for the troubled soul at the end of the journey.

Grasping the surreal possibility of being able to come home, after rejecting God, may not be easy to accept.  However, the only other alternative is the way the passage ends…no peace for the wicked!  The Father says you must come home!

Passages in Scripture like this one, and the Prodigal Son, the forgiveness of the thief on the cross next to Jesus, and many others, are so precious, offering hope to those who have strayed from their Creator.  They are precious because they reveal the heart of God, which is love that desires the best for each of us. 

In many lives, that central, loving heart of God’s may take many years to get through the hard exterior life tends to build around our own hearts.  But God’s love is tough, and relentless, and impervious to our foolish ways.  And when the weary, wandering soul finally arrives at nowhere else to go, the rough road of humble repentance only requires one small step.

And that one, contrite step towards God is all that’s required to have the floodgate of peace opened.

For You Today

You may have travelled the highways of life that seemed easier and much more suitable to bring you what you wanted, and been successful, or a dismal failure.  Either way, if you’re reading this far, you’ve also no doubt discovered rejecting God’s way has been emptiness of the soul.  The missing piece is like the dangling carrot in front of the mule pulling the cart….he’s never going to reach it, just like peace will always be just out of reach for you.  Time to rebuild the road home?

Hear one more time what the rebuilt road home looks like in your life:

The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this:  “I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble.  I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.  

Restoration and reviving…it’s worth the trip, no matter how rough the repair job gets on the road back home.

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: 

Resting in Peace and Two Billion

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