You are clean because of Jesus' blood and can be honest about your shortcomings.
Guilt is a legal status between you and God, but Jesus died for your guilt.
Shame comes from feelings about yourself, but Jesus' love makes you wonderful and blameless.
You must overcome guilt and shame by faith to move forward in your spiritual journey.
Only because of Jesus' blood, you're clean. And you're clean today and tomorrow, you're clean forever. You just have to be honest and sincere about it. We're not trying to hide behind shortcomings and, oh, I can do anything I want. No, sincere Christians are clean. Those who care about God and their salvation and Jesus are clean. Those who blow it should just simply admit it and clean. You can feel it. And so to have a strong faith through this life, for your faith gear to be turning, you're going to have to always be conscious of the blood. And stop beating yourself up. And stop thinking how wrong you did. Well, I guess it's my fault. Well, I guess it's my fault that I can't get blessed. It's my fault that the prayer... Okay, maybe so, but quit saying it like that. I mean, it's not God's fault, so you're probably right. But stop saying it like that. Stop beating yourself up like that. That is not how God is viewing this. The way God is viewing it is different. He's like, come on. No, don't think that way. Come on, come on. Just keep coming. Come on, come on, come on, come on. He's rooting for us like we're running this race. He's rooting for you. He not putting you down and condemning you and making you feel bad for your shortcomings and how doubtful you are all the time He not doing it like that So you've got to have a different image. We have to change the image. Maybe this little passage might help. Colossians chapter 1, start with verse 21. And you who were once alienated and enemies in your mind. that's where a lot of the problem is it's in your mind by wicked works yet now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death so the cross the blood the sacrifice he did this to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in his sight stop there Jesus died And that act alone allows him to present you holy and unblameable in his sight. Everybody in this room, everyone that professes Jesus Christ, everyone that has been born again and saved, has been presented to God already as holy and blameless in his sight. How many of you are blameless all hands go up just do it Preacher said all hands go up All are blameless You're already presented holy and blameless. He already loves you. He loves the good Christians in here and the bad Christians in here. How many good Christians do we have? How many bad Christians do we have? we want to be good christians my point is it's relative some are good some are better some are best some are not so good some are a little bit better than the bottom we're all in christ you've been presented as holy unblameable if you are sincere about your sin and admit it openly to god he forgot it he looks at you like what are you talking about we keep trying to rehearse the thing we've got all this guilt we've got all this shame we keep living under this thing and it destroys us we just sang a song today about the shame what was it i was buried beneath my shame and there's no reason for that you know guilt and shame are similar but not exact guilt is more the legal status of things between us and god and you need to get free from guilt He died for your guilt His bloodshed allows you not to feel guilty I mean the law was written so that everyone would be guilty under God And then Jesus came so that no one would have to be guilty anymore. But shame is different. Shame is a result of feelings about yourself. Shame comes from family stuff that you grew up in. Shame comes from not feeling adequate. But shame is not a healthy thing at all. And so you have to recognize that because Jesus died for your guilt, you don't have to have any shame. Because he's already presented you wonderful, you are. And that means you might have to overcome a lot of stuff that parents said, that family did, that stuff happened in your childhood that made you feel like you weren't good enough, not worth enough, didn't achieve enough, didn't win enough, failure. Everybody deals with shame and what happens is that keeps you stuck for years, even in spiritual matters. So you have to overcome it by faith. We have to overcome guilt and shame. Or it will keep dragging you back into it. Thank you.
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