Welcome to today's conversation with God! I hope these times in God's Word are strengthening to you and bring you closer to God. Today, let's settle into Psalm 38 for a few minutes. Give it a reading. Is there anything that stands out to you or speaks to your life right now? This psalm is a prayer of repentance and a plea for mercy and healing. So it's very specific to those times when we know that we have sinned against God and we feel the distance that our sin has created between him and us.
My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. (v. 4)
Guilt can be good and guilt can be bad. It depends on what is causing it and how you deal with it. There's true guilt and false guilt. True guilt is when you have done something wrong or failed to do something good that you should have done. It's like your conscience's smoke detector. It's going off, alerting you that you screwed up and you need to do something to fix it. False guilt is when you feel bad about something that you really shouldn't. Maybe it's guilt that someone else loads on you unfairly. Or maybe it's just you beating yourself up. But either way, guilt is heavy and it sucks the life out of you if you let it hang around.
So what to do? The solution isn't to lose your conscience. It's there for a good reason! If you keep repeating what you did wrong you'll eventually stop feeling bad about it. But that doesn't mean you're alright. Quite the opposite, it just means you've gone numb inside. You've stopped feeling what you should. You've let the smoke detector's batteries die. The threat is still there; you're just not hearing the alarm anymore.
The thing to do with guilt is deal with it. Figure out the source. Is it true or false guilt? If it's true guilt, the solution is found right here:
I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin.... O LORD, do not forsake me; be not far from me, O my God. Come quickly to help me, O Lord my Savior. (v. 18, 21-22)
Give it to God. Own up. Admit it. And ask forgiveness. If you've received Jesus as your Savior, then the price has already been paid for your sin. Claim it. And then celebrate God's mercy and grace!
If it's false guilt, let it go. Identify it as an unfair burden and refuse to carry it. Give it to God, too. Affirm to him that you aren't subject to anyone else's judgment. You only answer to God. You are free to live under his loving rule and let his word be your guide. You are free from the bondage of other people's rules and expectations. God, it's good to be free!
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I'm so glad that we have somewhere to take guilt because it certainly can eat us up inside! Thank you, Chris, for the reminder that sometimes the guilt we feel is not ours to carry. We can give that up too! After all, Christ is our source of freedom and we need to be free from guilt of any kind!!
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