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PROGRAM D-7297
Are you tired of feeling guilty all the time? Did you know that God doesn’t lay guilt trips on you? There are two natures of guilt. How can you recognize which is which?
Guilt can be either true or false—deserved or undeserved. True guilt is what we feel when we’ve sinned against God and we know it. It is what we feel when God is convicting us of some area in our lives that needs to be changed, and we are resisting that change.
In Psalm 38 we find David struggling with true guilt because of his sin. And that guilt was causing him a great deal of difficulty. It was affecting his health; he said his guilt had overwhelmed him like a burden too heavy to bear. He was in a constant depressed state, mourning all day long because of his guilt. It drained him of strength and made him miserable.
If some of the guilt you’re dealing with falls into this category, do you see how your physical, mental and spiritual well-being are strongly impacted by guilt? True guilt is not from God. It is a result of our sin and many times our unwillingness to forsake that sin.
As long as David harbored his sin and didn’t confess it to God, the guilt continued to work at him. God kept his hand heavy on David until he acknowledged his guilt to the Lord. God wasn’t being cruel to David; he was just trying to get him to act quickly, confess his sin, and find forgiveness.
David got rid of his true guilt by acknowledging his sin to God, not covering it up any longer, and finding forgiveness. Until we do that, true guilt will never leave us. But remember, that true guilt is not from God; rather it is a result of our failure to deal quickly and decisively with known areas of sin.
And then, many of us have difficulty forgiving ourselves after God has forgiven us, and we continue carrying around guilt. How foolish of us. If God has forgiven us and no longer condemns us, who are we not to forgive ourselves?
Are you carrying around guilt from past sins that have been forgiven? That’s a satanic trick to rob you of joy and make you ineffective for Jesus. I urge you to deal with known sin and get rid of the guilt, and then continue to accept the forgiveness that comes with confession and remember that God remembers your sin no more. Just drop the guilt and thank God for his goodness.