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What is false guilt? Do you know how to recognize it? I’m talking about the little foxes that can ruin our attitudes and cause harm to our Christian witness. And pretty high on that list for many of us is false guilt.
False guilt is a guilt we impose upon ourselves. We allow it to take root in our minds, to start causing all kinds of bad feelings, to feed us all kinds of lies, which we begin to believe. Here are some examples of it:
- What we feel when we keep remembering what God has forgiven and forgotten!
- What we feel when someone appears to be disappointed in us.
- What we feel when we have to say no.
- What we feel when we try to please people and fail.
- What we feel when we allow others to dictate what and who we should be.
- What we feel when we are unfairly accused of something.
And believe me, there are many more. Notice each one begins with what we feel. It’s a feeling—not grounded in truth—but nonetheless strong and real. One of the first signs you are dealing with false guilt is you can’t seem to pinpoint exactly why you feel guilty. If you had to state why you feel guilty, you’d say things like, “Well, I just never seem to get it right,” or “She’s always telling me that I need to improve” or “I just can’t seem to make anyone happy.”
Perhaps the false guilt we suffer from the most is guilt over our past. We tend to go back and remember the sins of the past, and even though they are forgiven, and God remembers them no longer, we don’t seem to be able to purge our memory. Is that true of you?
The first and most important step in learning to manage false guilt is to recognize it as false. The second step is to replace wrong thinking with right thinking. You start praising the Lord, singing a good song, or reciting all your blessings. Refuse to allow the thoughts of false guilt to have a place in your mind. And the more you do this, the less false guilt you’ll have to deal with. You can have victory over this little fox through prayer and bringing your thoughts under control. Life is so much nicer when you get rid of false guilt.