Guilt, shame and conscience (I) The offence of the cross

In my primary goal of helping us to come to true intimacy, to the place where we can confess our faults one to another (James 5:16), my thoughts keep getting interrupted by things that I feel we first need to understand. Over fifty times in Proverbs we read of the need to get understanding, above all get understanding. If, as we have been saying, we go to our brother without understanding to either confess, or to show him his fault (Matthew 5:24;18:15-17), we will likely mess it up, and make things very much worse. Understanding needs to start with ourselves. Paul tells us in Philippians 2:3 that each one, in lowliness of mind, should esteem others better than himself. And we cannot even start to do that if we do not understand our own propensity to sin. And we will not likely fully come to terms with that, until at the same time, we know how deeply we are loved and forgiven.

Christians have been accused of laying guilt trips on the world, and sadly this accusation is far from being without foundation! We will however, need to talk about true and false guilt, and the difference between guilt and shame. But what I want to say this morning, is that Jiminy Cricket’s advice to Pinocchio to “always let your conscience be your guide,” is not good advice. My particular quibble is with the word “always!” The point is, that among other things, our consciences are culturally conditioned. We can read of the puzzlement of adults who were arrested for incest in isolated communities, where incest was simply accepted as "normal." The Scriptures talk about the possibility of our consciences being “seared as with a branding iron” (1 Timothy 4:2), a picture of extreme insensitivity!

I have gotten myself into trouble in Christian circles by quoting Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all and desperately wicked, who can know it?” It was not quoted in self-righteousness. At the breakup of my first marriage, I had murder in my heart, and I’m not at all sure that I would not have followed through if I thought I could’ve gotten away with it. Just to be clear I didn’t! But an important step on my journey to salvation, was Holy Spirit convicting me of my own culpability. Then coming across this verse I came to see that the Scriptures know us very well. Actually, if you are a Christian and you don’t know that your heart is deceitful, then in fact you are demonstrating the verse.In particular as a Christian you know intellectually that Jeremiah 17:9 is true, but if I don’t know it in your spirit …?

Father, I don’t think we can even start to come to the place where we can regard others as better than ourselves, until we start to acknowledge that given the right (or possibly the wrong) circumstances each and every one of is is capable of the most heinous of sins. But in order to do this Lord we need to know that we are safe in You, totally forgiven and fully and unconditionally accepted. Thank You Lord for the divine exchange. You made Jesus to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). Truly Lord, only the substitutionary sacrifice of our perfect saviour was sufficient to cover all of our sin. This is the offence of the cross (Galatians 5:11). And I want to thank You again this morning Lord for Your amazing provision in Jesus Name Amen