Forgiveness Assuages My Guilt

Forgiveness Assuages My Guilt

In this man Jesus there is forgiveness for your sins. Everyone who believes in him is freed from all guilt and declared right with God. –Acts 13:38-39

My friend Kate was a “good girl” who grew up in church and found herself pregnant as a senior in college. Wanting to erase the mistake and move on with her life, she had an abortion and promised herself she would not have sex again until she was married. But only two years later she was pregnant again, and once again, she chose to abort the baby. Eventually Kate married and started a family, but she couldn’t shake the guilt from her self-centered choices, and for years she was miserable. She believed that God forgave her, but she could not forgive herself.

Kate’s eyes were opened, however, when her sister-in-law pointed out that the guilt-inducing voice she heard was not from God but from Satan, who wanted to keep her stewing in her sin rather than enjoying the freedom of God’s forgiveness. The Bible says that when God forgives us, he will never again remember our sins. It’s not that our all-knowing Father forgets, but rather he chooses not to bring up our sin to hold it against us. It is Satan, the accuser, who brings it back to rub our noses in it and make us feel guilty. Why should you listen to him bringing up your past to accuse you if God does not do so?

The only way to cleanse a guilty conscience is to embrace the absolute and all-encompassing forgiveness of God. Only then can you forgive yourself and make a fresh start. Nothing you try on your own can assuage your guilt—not the mind games to justify your actions, not the escape mechanisms to numb your feelings, not the religious performance to prove yourself worthy. Only the gift of justification and the power of his forgiveness can free you from the prison of regret and shame that holds you hostage.

If God says you are forgiven, who are you to keep punishing yourself? If you refuse to forgive yourself, it’s as if you are saying that you are greater than God, that your judgment is higher than his. Will you humble yourself so you can experience the pervasive pleasure of his forgiveness?

Forgiving Father, I am weary of carrying this weight of my guilt and shame, so I bring it to your Cross, where you cover my failure with forgiveness.

DIGGING DEEPER