Guilt and Shame

You feel guilt for something that you have done or have not done. This was totally dealt with by God in Christ

Romans 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

Rom 4:24-25 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification.

God now treats you like you have never sinned because of your faith in what God has already accomplished by Christ's birth, death, and resurrection. God now treats you as your are in Him, totally pure, holy and perfect by your faith. You are no longer a sinner but now your are a saint and a son of God by His recreation.

Shame is the idea or feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with you that needs to be corrected. Some people have more shame than others but even if you only have 1% shame you will reach out with your energy and strength fully depending on your own resources to correct and fix that shame by your knowledge of good and evil. This is what Adam and Eve did in the garden that got them kicked out of the garden. It is impossible for the knowledge of good and evil to ever get you back in good standing with God or make you pleasing to God.

The blood of Christ cleanses the heart and our conscience of all shame by simple faith. The only reason we accept shame is we do not yet fully see that Christ's work on the cross and us being raised AS Him was totally absolute and complete. Any shame that you may feel is the result of believing a lie that makes the death of Christ and His resurrection ineffective in your life.

The scripture makes it very clear that you are NOW complete in Him but as long as you do not believe that and think that you have to do something to make yourself complete, you will only find defeat and failure. In your mind you are still caught in a consciousness of the "law of sin and death," but once you see that it is no longer you as Gal 2:20 says, "I am crucified with Christ," (that is, I DIED), but "nevertheless I live," i.e., here I still am, but wait, it's not I but Christ - and then I see it!

Open your eyes and see, I am not just I, but now He and I are as one, so that when I am living He is living." Yes, that is it. And that is where we begin to see the truth of Romans 8:2: "For the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death." What a verb tense Paul uses! He does not say, "Will set you free," but "HAS," that is, this is already existing reality, it has already happened, it already is. Is what?

It is now truth and we are seeing it by the Spirit, that we are no longer under that old law of sin and death, separation, self-effort, etc., but now under a new law which has effected my release from the old, and this new law is "the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus." That is, He now is your every moment life! His mind is yours, His thoughts are yours, His desires are yours. How do we know? The Spirit gives us the knowing.

Religion and unbelief is reaching out your own hand with your own effort to get something that God has already freely given you in Christ, If you do not believe that you are now complete in Him and have all that you need - you will do something which always involves the flesh and involves the tree of good and evil - knowledge.You need to stop living from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. How? Simple - this was already done by Christ on the cross -when He died you died and you were raised AS HIM.

Does Christ now live by the tree of knowledge of good and evil? NO!! so neither do you.

IT IS A GIFT!!! You are no longer associated with that tree anymore because you are FULL OF HIS LIFE!!!

IT IS DONE - you just accept HIS ACCEPTANCE by believing that.

Amen, Brother Vern. Amen. It’s already GIVEN to us! We don’t have to work for it. "For by grace you have been saved (past tense) through faith. And this is not of your own doing, but the gift of God so that no man may boast.” -Ephesians 2:8-9.

Keep these encouragements coming. The Lord be with your spirit. Amen!

- Michael Liao

Oh, I don’t know. A little guilt and shame never hurt anybody.

In 55 AD, Paul wrote he was "least of the apostles." In 60 AD, he wrote he was "least of all the saints." Around 64 AD, he said he was the "chief" of sinners. Note the progression.

Ha! Yes indeed our brother Paul took upon himself the same humility of our Lord Jesus the Christ :)
By doing so he (Paul) preserved the way, leaving us a very well documented example of the "progression” that you point out which our flesh so refuses to submit-
To be carnally minded is death, and as many as are led by the spirit of God they are the sons and daughters of God :)

It truly seems Vern is promoting "another” gospel, one that takes potentials and turns them into definitive facts ... one such example was on the Happy Easter thread, where he stated "we were raised AS Jesus” ... Greg seems to openly endorse this ideology and as such an inquiry was made, an appeal to Greg to help clarify this endorsement in light of what the scriptures clearly and repeatedly state,... as yet he didn’t offer any clarification.
This "gospel” seems to pronounce the finished product (fully mature) onto a simple sprout and we all know from the scriptures that is simply isn’t the gospel that was handed down to us-

Two thumbs up for Brother Fletcher and Brother Todd.

"When a man believes in Christ, he is in that moment, in God’s sight, as though he had never sinned in all his life.”

"You shall be so cleansed, that not the shadow of a spot, nor the sign of a sin, shall be left upon you. When a man believes in Christ, he is in that moment, in God’s sight, as though he had never sinned in all his life. . . . This is the most wonderful thing about the gospel. This does not take away part of our sin, but the whole of it; it does not remove it partially, but entirely; not for a little time, but for ever.”

C. H. Spurgeon "The Silver Trumpet” (Sermon 366, MTP 7:151)

"Your sins are so gone that they cannot be laid to your charge.”

"Are you a believer and afraid of your old sins? You are afraid of foes which do not exist. Your sins are so gone that they cannot be laid to your charge. . . . You are not only pardoned, but you are a child of God. Go to your Father with joy and thankfulness, and bless him for all his love to you. Wipe those tears away, smooth those wrinkles from your brow: take up the song of joy and gladness.”

C. H. Spurgeon "Plenary Absolution” (Sermon 1108, MTP 19:239)

Eph 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
Eph 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
Eph 1:5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.

The blood of Christ has washed all my sins, guilt and shame away.

"I believe the holier a man becomes, the more he mourns over the unholiness which remains in him."

Charles Spurgeon

Hebrews 9:14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Hebrews 10:22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

1 Peter 3:21 Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you””not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience””through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Heb 10:14-16 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before,This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

They are amazing verses Vern,

but the topic was that we should never experience anymore guilt. It seems like you are dealing with two topics at the same time. One of a clear conscience which is a gift of following the Lord and obeying and listening to Him.

The other is we should never feel guilty again, because in the eyes of God He never looks on us as having any sin or that we can sin ? (from your previous posts).

If it was so why did Jesus tell the church in Revelation he would spit them out of his mouth for not being hot in their obedience to Him ?
And why did Paul tell the church at Corinth to put people outside of the church for their sin ?
I am happy, said Paul, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. -

I think you're so enthusiastic that you get things mixed up.

That's why we have to follow scriptures. If we throw out our conscience that informs us we are guilty when we sin, we become guilty of not having a clear conscience before God.

That was well articulated and lovingly so :)

Yes you are correct but let us look and examine the root of sin which is unbelief or lack of faith.

The bible makes it clear that without faith it is impossible to please Him and whatever is not of faith is sin. So the truth is that without faith any true obedience is totally impossible.

Now we all believe something so unbelief does not believe in God's truth and character.

It was Jesus Christ who said "he that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of god."

The best example of this is when God had given the Promised Land to the children of Israel but only two of over 500,000 people believed God. The others believed an evil report instead of believing what God had said. Were these two men better than the rest? Not really but they did have a different Spirit.

We are clearly warned in the bible about this. Heb 4:1-4. "Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.”

1 Cor. 10:1-7, "Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.”

The Gospel - the good news was not at fault but their response of unbelief was.

Heb. 3:7-12, Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.) Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.”

We need to know that God has already given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. 2 Peter 1:2, "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

We can NOW boldly go to the throne of Grace NOW because we see and respond to God in faith knowing that Christ's work on the cross was totally absolute and complete.

Heb 4:14 16, "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

I do not know about you but I now continually live in HIS throne room now.