Everybody deals with guilt and shame at some point in our lives. We are all familiar with them. There are moments we simply can't avoid; moments that caused us to feel badly about ourselves. You may be wrestling with guilt and shame or even false guilt as you read this. Good! Now you can get freedom!
Are you familiar with "false guilt"? You might be feeling guilty for something you have not done wrong. Here is a great example of false guilt: the unforgivable sin. As a pastor, I've had many people ask me about the unforgivable sin. These wonderful people have been greatly burdened by a false guilt stemming from a misunderstanding of what Jesus said. They typically think it's because they have spoken the name of God in vain or that they said something in ignorance about Holy Spirit. Do you mind if we deal with this issue right now?
Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is, indeed, slander against the Spirit of God, but that's not all. The Unforgivable Sin is also best understood as when people reject Jesus as Lord and Savior and the Holy Spirit's works of conviction in their hearts. Jesus laid down His life as a ransom for all who would come to Him. He desires that none should perish, but that all would come to repentance. The last thing Jesus wants to have happen to anybody is for them to, after they die, to stand before Him during the Great White Throne judgement and He has to commit them to Hell. Rebellious folks like to think Jesus sends people to Hell because He's mean-spirited and angry, but all He's doing is honoring their wishes. Those rebellious people chose Satan's pride of life over Jesus's love and humility. This decision, this Unforgivable Sin, people make equates to bondage over freedom, pretense over transparency, self-centeredness over being their brother's keeper, hatred over love, and death over life. Everything in life is a choice. There are repercussions for everything we do, whether right or wrong; like the ripples in a pond after skipping a rock. Acceptance or rejection. Give or take. Cause and effect. What you sow is what you reap. Ignore spiritual truth at your peril.
If you are in a intimate relationship with Jesus Christ (Christian or Messianic Jew), then you're fine and you know it because the Holy Spirit attests to it. False guilt is clearly a tool of the devil to get us to feel poorly about ourselves and to lack confidence in our relationship with God. You lack nothing in your relationship with God if you are in the Blood Covenant with Father God through Jesus and baptized in the Holy Spirit.
“Guilt tells us we did something wrong. Shame tells us we are something wrong.”
Guilt and shame are like demonic Siamese twins -- they are never separated. I would like you to think of shame as something to be defeated, not simply an emotion nor something to be suppressed into the closet or swept under the rug of your mind. One day, in prayer, Holy Spirit showed me I used to have two closets! One even had spiritual 'feces' that had sunk into the carpet inside.
To be spiritually and emotionally healthy, everybody has to come out of a closet and lift the rug at some point. Let me make one thing abundantly clear: everybody has skeletons/something to hide. The healthy ones are those who go to Jesus and repent and get healing. The reasons many people remain the emotionally 'walking wounded' is because they do not know the power of the Blood of Jesus or His Word or because they don't know what the problem is yet. Don't be the person who pretends God doesn't know. People sing this about the mythical Santa Claus, but it's really God who "sees you when you're sleeping, He knows when you're awake, He knows if you've been bad or good..." :D
Jesus wants us to know how valuable we are to Him. He died a horrific death so we could be healed in every way -- to receive the fullness of salvation. That fullness of salvation includes freedom from all the works of the devil; freedom from the fowler's snares. Allow God to reveal the sources of false guilt and shame today and take those things to Him in repentant prayer.
Prayer
Lord God, thank You for being so graceful and generous to me that I can come boldly before the throne of grace whenever the situation arises--good or bad. This (list shame/guilt/false guilt) has been causing me great pain and worry. I come before You and ask that You would forgive me for (list shameful things you've done) and reveal the sources of guilt for each thing I have forgotten about. Please remove from me the mask of shame so I can truly be the person You made me to be. Help me open this closet and clean up the floor under the rug, if need be. I know You do not seek to punish me or to judge me, but I realize to maintain intimacy in our relationship I must confess all hidden sins. I truly appreciate Your openness to my cries and I want to please You more than ever. You are wonderful to me, my Lord! In Jesus' name I pray, amen.