Free From Guilt....Free To Begin Again (Part 1)

One of the greatest deterrents from us embracing the gospel and having victory in our lives is guilt!  

Dave Hulings, the head coach at WMC (where I assistant coach) blew my mind yesterday when he made this statement:  "Satan always gives me 2 lies, the first is that God doesn't care about my sin, and the second is that God hates sin so much that he would never want me back."

So often we find ourselves trapped in believing the second lie.  Satan loves to remind us of our failures, our sin, and our inability to measure up to God's holiness.  Satan whispers in our ear "how could God love you?  You are dirty and weak and don't deserve God's love"  This guilt that we carry usually leads to 2 courses of action, neither good options...

1.  Our guilt causes us to despair in our condition and drive us further into sin.  We hate ourselves, become depressed, believe that we are not loved or sought after, which causes us to plunge deeper and deeper into the sin we hate!  I have had multiple young men so depressed by their sin that it has caused them to contemplate suicide.  This is what Satan wants, to destroy us!

2.  We try to merit back God's favor.  We believe if we clean up enough on the outside we can fool God into thinking we are clean.  This attitude breeds legalism, we love rules that we can follow to "prove our worth" and we also love reveling in others failures to shift the focus off of ourselves.  We become unloving, harsh, bitter, and miserable as we seek to earn God's love and approval through deeds, masking a spiritual hopelessness we feel.

What Does The Gospel Say About This?

The gospel says that we are absolutely sinners and that there is no way we can measure up to God's holiness (Rom 3:23).  But here is the awesome news: Christ has measured up for us! (2 Cor 5:21, Jn 3:16)  And what's so amazing is that through what Jesus has done for us on the cross, we actually receive Christ's righteousness and are made PERFECTLY CLEAN in the eyes of God! (2 Cor. 5:21)  

On the cross Jesus paid the full penalty of our sin and we have been purchased by Jesus no longer under the authority of sin and guilt.  The sin we commit today, tomorrow, next week does grieve God, hurt relationships, and harms our testimony, but it can never separate us from God's Love! (Rom. 8:39)  If it could, than Christ wasn't victorious.  Satan wants you to believe sin and death won the day but we know that on the 3rd day Jesus rose victorious!

Finally, the gospel says we have been made new and clean in Jesus! (2 Cor. 5:17) Our sin is gone, we have no need to feel guilt, but we are free from this point forward to embrace the forgiveness found in Christ and move forward serving, loving, and walking with him!  That is the hope of the gospel that Jesus completely removes our guilt and allows to continually begin again!