Wallowing in Guilt and Shame
Feeling miserable is not an achievement. You haven’t accomplished anything useful.
Also it’s a misdirection play intended to keep you weak and clueless about who your true enemy is and how to fight back.
The following few words expose the whole con.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 6:12 (ESV)
Let’s break it down.
Our fight is not with people.
You know that one who keeps nagging you or putting you down. They’re not your enemy.
In fact, they are your ally in the real world conflict.
They have the same enemy you do.
We fight against rulers.
Rulers have dominion over something.
They control forces and they have the power to align them against you.
But why would they do this against little old you?
Because they want to get even with someone else.
You just happen to be someone this other one cares deeply about.
By hurting you they are hurting the one they really despise.
We fight against authorities.
This is close to a restatement of the idea of fighting against rulers because rulers certainly have authority.
But authority describes established knowledge or understanding.
Your enemy is no fool and in some ways holds power by having in some way achieved it.
Cosmic Powers describe the realm where these ruling authorities exist.
This is a description of a world ruler and another name for Satan.
Over this present darkness.
Let’s not skip over this too quickly.
We think we see and understand but the truth is we are operating completely blind.
We walk in illusions and fog and so we fight what we think we see most clearly — other human beings and even ourselves.
When we are cut off from the only source of truth and light, we operate out of our own instincts which turn out to be completely unreliable.
Spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places.
The battle for your heart and this world is a cosmic battle that is occurring right now, whenever you happen to be reading this, in heavenly places.
These are real places you and I cannot physically see or touch but are more real than everything our physical senses have been made to sense.
So now, back where we started.
Guilt and shame are a waste of your time.
Once you have acknowledged your mistakes and asked the one that matters most, the only one who hold the truth because he is the truth, and understand that your are forgiven completely, even though you might not feel it, you can walk away clean.
Here is a practical example.
You step in dog poo.
Even worse, you fall into a lot of dog poo.
Not only are you dirty, but you stink.
And your filth and stink are unpleasant to others who are happy to point out what you have done,
hopefully at least in part to be helpful to you — in case you haven’t noticed —
but also because it helps them feels better about themselves to know that in this instance they aren’t the ones publicly exposed with this particular stinky problem.
So, what do you need to do when you step in it?
At most, take a bath and put on clean clothes while you wash the stinky ones.
That’s it.
As we become aware of our foolish actions, no different than stepping in poo, we acknowledge our mistakes and failures and we ask to be washed.
Sooner the easier.
God washes everyone who asks.
Then we do our best to not do it again.
Here’s a good Bible verse on that.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9 (ESV)
But what if we don’t admit or confess?
What if we pretend it didn’t happen?
Then we fall into our spiritual enemy’s trap.
We become liars like he is.
This is explained in the very next verse.
If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
1 John 1:10
When two people who should love each other are instead flinging poo at each other, the whole thing stinks and frankly — between the two of them alone — it can’t be fixed.
They have both wandered into the enemy’s territory and are now being spiritually pounded by lies.
The only remedy is to stop, turn around, and head back to the light.
This is an individual act, not depending on what the other decides to do.
In fact I would say it is irrelevant what the other decides to do and that it is not anyone else’s business.
We each alone will in the end give an account to God only for our own actions, not those of anyone else.
And if you don’t believe in a final judgment, take it up with God when you see him.
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them.
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.