By Pastor Andrew Farland
Since the moment you decided to follow Jesus, the Evil One has been trying to trip you up. He’s been moving chess pieces on the board of life hoping that you’d stumble. Sometimes he succeeds and other times you’re strong enough to fight him off. The truth is that one of the Devil’s most effective tools against us is our own guilt.
Maybe for you, you feel guilty for the words you said to a parent before they passed away. Or maybe you feel guilty for how you treated your spouse. Maybe you carry guilt for repeatedly sinning even though you try your hardest not to. If you walk around with this kind of guilt on your shoulders, it can eventually make you think less of yourself as a person and as a Christian.
Doctors tell us that guilt can even cause physical and emotional problems. Guilt is a powerful thing. And Satan knows it. He uses our own guilt to pull us away from God. So, how do we live guilt-free? How can we avoid giving the Evil One a foothold in our lives?
Accept
You can either accept God’s payment or you will pay. To live in the freedom that God wants you to experience, you have to believe that what Jesus did on the cross really did cover over every sin from the past and future. Psalm 103:12 says that “as far as the east is from the west, God has removed our transgressions from us.”
Confess
Whatever you are willing to confess, God is willing to forgive. 1 John 1:9 tells us that “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins.” After you have committed to living in the freedom that comes with fully believing in Jesus’ forgiveness, you should spend time confessing your sins to God. When you do, you’ll begin to shed the emotional, physical, and spiritual weight that you carry around each day.
Be encouraged that there is nothing God can’t handle. You are His child and He offers unconditional forgiveness to all of his sons and daughters.
Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Be encouraged today because God is with you.
