Do You Ever Feel Guilty?

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Guilt: what an ugly thing it is!  It paralyzes us, cripples us, crushes us under its cruel weight. 

I struggle with guilt.  I used to feel guilty about everything.  Some was appropriate; some was unfound.  I felt guilty for my parents’ divorce, guilty for “allowing” myself to be violated, guilty for the hatred and the bitterness I felt toward the people who hurt me. 

I used to be paralyzed with guilt for terrible things I said and did to others: mean words and selfish actions.  Guilt can be deadly.  The intense guilt I felt often turned into self-hatred.  Then, feeling bad about myself, I would lash out onto others.  The guiltier I felt, the more I lashed out, and that just brought on more guilt.  It was a vicious and destructive cycle that hurt myself and others. 

I felt guilty for things I had done and guilty for things I “should” have done but didn’t, for overtly hurting others and for passively sitting by and not doing a thing.  

Do you feel ever bad because of selfishness, bad habits, and guilty pleasures?  Do you ever feel guilty for not doing “enough”?

Guilt is not something God places on us.  There’s a difference between guilt and conviction.  Guilt threatens to destroy you under its crushing anguish.  Conviction is God’s gentle but firm reproach, a reminder that something needs to change: an admonishment that encourages us to be our best, to make things right. 

Conviction is borne of love, not hatred—as guilt is.  Guilt paralyzes; conviction motivates and encourages.  Conviction strengthens and inspires us to transform.  Guilt holds us down and rubs our noses in our ugly mistakes.  Conviction lifts us up and shows us a refreshing new vision of how we can be.  Even as God admonishes us, He is helping us, cheering us on to rise up to be our best, to be who He’s always meant for us to be—loved and transformed by His love.

If anyone tells you that God condemns you, that’s a lie.  God does not condemn you.  In fact, He’s the very one who sacrificed His life to remove that condemnation.  Guilt is not something God places on us.  It’s what He removes from us. 

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I love Easter and everything about it.  I used to love the Easter picnics, the baskets, the egg hunts, candy, spring.  I still love the pastel colors and the eggs, symbols of new life. 

But now that I know the true meaning of Easter, of Resurrection Sunday, I love it even more today because I realize its depth in the freedom it brings. 

We’ve all made mistakes.  We all have debts—monetary and spiritual—that must be paid.  Even us humans have that sense of justice.  When people wrong us, we want them to be sorry.  When someone breaks something of ours, they must replace it.  People who break the law have to go to jail or pay the fine.  It’s only right. 

How much more will a righteous God—whose very character is justice—require restitution, call for payment when there’s a debt, call for wrongs to be made right? 

Thankfully, our God is not only righteous.  He is loving—so loving that…while He is the ultimate judge, our only judge, the only one who has a right to judge, while He calls for this most costly payment, while He calls for justice and is the epitome of righteousness, He is also love made real.  In His utmost love, God paid that staggering debt Himself so that we—every single human being who has ever had breath—can be made right, so we can be clean and forgiven, so that we can have a healed relationship with Him and be freed from guilt and condemnation once and for all time.

If anyone tells you that God condemns you, that’s a lie.  God does not condemn you.  He is the very one who sacrificed His life to remove that condemnation. 

The fact that Jesus died for us to pay for our sins, to do away completely with all our guilt—found and unfound, present, past, future—that He loved us soooo much that He paid the awful, painful, excruciating price for us, the fact that He did this all for you, for me…it’s overwhelming. 

It’s what gives us hope, freedom from all guilt.  It’s what gives us new life, a reason to celebrate this Easter, this Resurrection Sunday.  It’s what spring is about, it’s what the eggs are about.  It’s what the flowers are for.  It’s a celebration of Jesus’ monumental sacrifice for us and the fact that—after He gave Himself up for us—He came back to life again, conquering death once and for all in a glorious victory and—in doing so—He gave each of us new life, too: a clean slate, a new beginning for this life and the one after it.  This is the meaning of Easter.

If you want to be free from guilt, to grasp this hope, this new beginning that God freely offers us, all you have to do is acknowledge the one who gave it to us and what He did to make it possible.  Just pray this prayer from your heart:

Lord, I carry guilt for things I have done and things I have not done, and I am tired of carrying them.  Please forgive me for the things that I have done to hurt others and relieve me of the guilt—even things that I’ve done to hurt myself.  Thank you for taking away this condemnation by paying for my sins, by dying on the cross, being the payment, the sacrifice so that I wouldn’t have to.  I am grateful for what You have done to free me from all guilt.  I put it all at Your feet, and in place of it, I receive your forgiveness, your freedom.  I receive your hope and new life.  I am now a new creation. 

I can now live guilt-free and start anew.  I can be the best that You created me to be.  Whenever the devil tries to remind me of my sins and mistakes and put guilt back on me and paralyze me, I will remind him that You, God, my only judge, have paid for my sins.  Your sacrifice was more than enough to free me from that guilt, to free me from being paralyzed.  You have forgiven me and freed me from the devil’s accusations.  I am now free and liberated to grow and change.  Please keep showing me how much You love me and help me to nurture my relationship with You.  In the name of Jesus Christ I pray, amen.

~For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  ~John 3:16-17