How does the Bible deal with guilt?

Guilt

I often feel wretched. I get full up of all the thoughts of all the things I've done or said or thought wrong, I try to do better and to stop doing things wrong but I straightaway slip right back. I know how bad the things I do, say and/or think are, but no matter how hard I try they just seem to have a hold on me. It makes me feel like such an awful person.

Perhaps that sounds familiar to you?

It was the way I was just before I became a Christian, when I'd learnt about sin and realised just how messed up a person I was, but not understood that being a Christian wasn't about trying hard to be a good person. I hadn't understood what words and phrases like, "grace", "forgiveness", "filled with the Spirit" and "born again" really meant. And so I was, for a time, in a state of despair.

And even now that I've become a Christian, periodically I seem to wind up in the situation I was then, hung up on how badly I'm doing on this or that and completely forgetting all about grace, forgiveness and being filled with the Spirit and born again. Having recently been in such a situation, I thought it might be a good idea to have a go at writing a post on the topic more generally.

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(There are a lots of 'you's in this post, this is not me talking down to anyone, I read all of these 'you's as 'I's and 'me's, they're just there to make it more readable.)
Imagine you've done something awful, or maybe you don't need to imagine. It might be a physical action, or something you've said or even something that you've thought but that you know you just shouldn't have. It's eating you up, in one way or another. That's guilt. Perhaps you're afraid you'll do it again, the temptation to do it may seem or be way too great for you.

If you stay the way you are, things will only get worse. Either you'll keep doing it, start doing something worse, or simply be eaten up by what you've already done. There needs to be a solution.
- The thing you've done wrong needs putting right, whoever you've hurt needs healing, justice needs to be done. This is important in getting rid of your guilt except...
- You need forgiveness too so that you can be spared from the punishment and no longer be held accountable. But that's not enough...
- You also need to change, so that you won't do it again and won't live an awful struggling battle of a life.

The trouble is that we were the source of the problem originally, we're the ones that are broken. How can someone broken fix them self? It seems hopeless.

The Bible offers hope, a sure hope, a way to fix not just the problem, but us as well. It starts off with grace. 

Grace and Forgiveness 
Romans 5:8, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Jesus, God the Son of God the Father, came to Earth to die in the place of anyone who's prepared to accept. We know that the stuff we do wrong needs punishing, justice needs to be done for it, but we can't take the punishment. Jesus can, and so he did, his offer to you and me and everyone is to take the punishment we deserve for us. Not only that, but his death also brings us forgiveness, with Jesus willingly taking our dirt and wrong and sin, we're no longer accountable, we're free to drop our guilt. This may be confusing, after-all the people we've wronged may never forgive us, or may never have the chance to, but God the ultimate judge of the universe has forgiven us. That's grace. But God's grace doesn't stop there... 

Being Filled with the Spirit and Born Again 
Like I said before, we need to change, lest all this become meaningless as we mess up again and again. God knows that too, there's another part of the deal of accepting Jesus' death in our place which we need to cover.

You can't just accept Jesus' death in your place and then ditch him. In return for taking all your sin and punishment, we need to accept God into our lives, to be our saviour, our king, our friend and so on. God doesn't just want to take our punishment, He also wants to give us all the goodness and good things He owns. 

One of the things He offers is change. He offers to get rid of all the rubbish messed up stuff inside us, all the stuff that we hate and loath, the stuff which is broken. He offers to change us bit by bit to make us more like Jesus. It'll take our lifetimes, and we won't see it completed until the next life but when that day comes we will be like Jesus, that's the offer. 

God offers to make us like Jesus. Think about that for a second.

Jesus once said, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." (John 10:10) 

Life as a Christian is not about rules and regulations. Life as a Christian is about something more. It's about a relationship with God and deeper relationships with each other, it's about love rather than necessity. It's about something so much deeper than anything this life can offer.

But how, how can we have this change and this life? Well, God's promise to anyone who accepts Jesus' death in their place, is to send the Holy Spirit (who is God) to live inside us and work in us, to change the way our hearts and minds work.

Accepting this God into your life offers you real life, real forgiveness, real change, and after you've said, "Yes" you don't need to do a thing. That's being born-again.

The problem is dealt with.

That's what led me to become a Christian. I am by no means a good person (genuinely), but I am a changing person and that gives me great joy. The beautiful thing is that God does the work, so even when I mess up and feel rubbish (which happens a lot), I'm able to have peace about it, move on from it and be confident that God will deal with it. That's grace.

Luke 2:8-20

"A Great Joy for all the People"

I've been given the task of doing a short talk for a youth and children Bible group Christmas party. The passage I've chosen to base the talk on is Luke 2:8-19:
⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.”

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Here's what I've got so far (not the finished version!), with some "helpful" doodles to accompany it:

It's coming up to Christmas, and soon, perhaps already, we're going to be hearing the Christmas story again and again. In fact I'm guessing most of you are already quite familiar with how it goes. Mary becomes pregnant with a promised baby from God

Then Mary and Joseph have to travel all the way to Bethlehem because the Roman Emperor has ordered everyone return to their home town to get recorded

But there's nowhere that will take them for the night

and Jesus has to be born in a stable

But I wonder how we respond to this message? I don't know about you, but I often get quite tempted to switch off when people start talking about the Christmas story. It's not that I don't care as such, it's just that I've heard it so many times!

But I don't think that is how I, or we if you're like me, should respond to this. What do the angels say when they appear to the shepherds?

They say that this is "good news that will cause great joy for all the people"! They say that Jesus is the Lord, he is God, and he's come to save us, to rescue us from death and judgement! It's amazing, life-changing news!

So what's a good response? Well, let's see how the people in the passage respond.

How do the angels react to this news? They praise God, "Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest! And on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests."

And how do the shepherds react? "They spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child" then, "the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God".

I think that there are two big things we can learn about how we should respond to Christmas from this.

The first is we should want to tell other people, like the shepherds did, straight away! Because this really is good news, we want everyone to be saved and to join in with the celebration!

And the second is that we should want to praise God for it! He came as a baby in a stable to save us from death, because he loves us, what could be more worth praising?

So let's enjoy Christmas! Let's celebrate like never before, let's enjoy our mince pies, our Christmas trees and our Christmas parties with friends and family, Christmas is worth celebrating! But as we do, let's take the opportunity to tell those who don't know, why Christmas really is so good, and to praise God with those who do.