Play

So many of God’s people are still saddled with shame but be assured that Jesus wants to set us free from our shame. He doesn’t want his children walking around with a backpack full of shame holding them down.

If you are harboring shame, have you asked yourself what lies you are believing about yourself? Shame attacks us personally; makes us believe that we are worthless and failures instead of living in the truth of who we are in Christ—new creations. If you can look back to where your shame began and bring that place to Jesus for healing, you will then be able to start unraveling this collection of shame which you’ve been carrying around for far too long.

Shame affects all of your relationships. First, it affects your relationship with God. Instead of approaching God’s throne of grace with confidence, shame makes you want to hide from God, like Adam and Eve did when they saw their shame after they sinned. So, that shame keeps you from praying and from God’s Word, and often from fellowship with other believers. You don’t see yourself clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is your true condition as a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, but you see yourself in your own tattered clothes, and you forget that God has forgiven you and removed your sin from you and remembers it no more.

Shame also affects your relationships with others. It pushes you to isolate because you feel exposed. And when you harbor shame on and on, it feels so terrible that it opens the door to uncontrollable emotions like anger and rage and can cause you to lash out at others and cause damage to those relationships, all because of this shame which is holding you in bondage.

One woman told how she learned to discard shame using a physical gesture of throwing her hands in the air and saying, “I release this shame; this shame does not belong to me.” This can be a powerful way to reinforce your decision to let go of the shame in your heart. Jesus scorned shame—rejected it—and we can do that, too.

Your most powerful weapon against shame is the truth of God’s Word. Use it to begin your pathway to freedom from shame.