What bliss belongs to the one whose rebellion has been forgiven, those whose sins are covered by blood. What bliss belongs to those who have confessed their corruption to God! For he wipes their slates clean and removes hypocrisy from their hearts.
Before I confessed my sins, I kept it all inside; my dishonesty devastated my inner life, causing my life to be filled with frustration, irrepressible anguish, and misery. The pain never let up, for your hand of conviction was heavy on my heart. My strength was sapped, my inner life dried up like a spiritual drought within my soul.
Pause in his presence.
Then I finally admitted to you all my sins, refusing to hide them any longer. I said, “My life-giving God, I will openly acknowledge my evil actions.” And you forgave me! All at once the guilt of my sin washed away and all my pain disappeared!
Pause in his presence. (Psalm 32:1-5 TPT)
Guilt oppresses us due to something bad that we have done, but shame says that we are bad! It attacks our identity. Guilt is outside of us, but shame is on the inside.
Jesus endured the shame of the cross. He took our shame and nailed it to that cross! He despised the shame that is used as a weapon to intimidate and control people. Naming and shaming puts labels on people’s integrity and severely discourages confession, leading to an entrapment in sin and condemnation. We have probably done this to people countless times, even to our own children.
Guilt can be forgiven but shame needs inner healing and a new foundation for our worth, based on who God says we are. We all have listened to condemning voices that seek to use shame to make us compliant to other’s agendas. Some of us have believed the lies which have made us feel unworthy to be blessed by God. We have been made worthy, not by our actions but by Jesus’.
“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:1-2 NKJV).
If we are under this weight, it’s time to break out of the snare, using the truth to set us free. Everything we need for peace, wellbeing and wholeness has already been purchased for us on the cross. Don’t fear punishment anymore but let God’s love be perfected within us by the Holy Spirit.
“He was despised and rejected and forsaken by men, a Man of sorrows and pains, and acquainted with grief and sickness; and like One from Whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we did not appreciate His worth or have any esteem for Him.
Surely, He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] considered Him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God [as if with leprosy].
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole” (Isa. 53:3-5 AMP).
Our salvation is SOZO, a total inside and out salvation which includes being saved, healed and delivered. We are saved from the punishment due for our sins, delivered from demons and healed of sicknesses, griefs, pains, weaknesses and distresses, which frees us from all shame, guilt and condemnation, making us worthy to inherit eternal life as sons and daughters of the King.
Mal Cotton 16.5.21
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