[Faith-talk] FW: [URCTCPrayerGroup2] URCTC Prayer Group 2 Bible Study: Spiritual warfare: Defeating guilt and shame by Great Bible Study

[Eric Calhoun]

Original Message: 
From: "BeeJay" <beejayokla at cox.net>
To: <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
Subject: [URCTCPrayerGroup2] URCTC Prayer Group 2  Bible Study: Spiritual
warfare: Defeating guilt and shame by Great Bible Study
Date: 
Sat, 26 Mar 2011 23:09:35 -0500



Spiritual warfare: Defeating guilt and shame 
Far too many believers are feeling dirty, worthless and ashamed of
themselves. As a result, they feel unclean and therefore unworthy to
approach God and have the living and intimate relationship that He wants to
have with them! Shame prevents us from intimacy with God because it makes
us feel unworthy and distant from Him.

What is the difference between guilt and shame?

Guilt is what takes place when a person realizes their failure. False
guilt, which is what Satan is known to throw at us, is where the sin has
been repented of and forgiven, but he still wants us to feel guilty or see
ourselves associated with our pasts. We are speaking of false guilt in this
teaching, because true guilt should prompt the person to repent and turn
from their sin, but false guilt is what Satan uses to rip apart the lives
of countless believers around the world.

While guilt is seeing what you've done, shame is seeing yourself as a
failure because of what you've done. Guilt is looking at the sin, shame is
looking at yourself. If you allow yourself to meditate upon guilt, it will
turn into shame. Guilt, if not properly dealt with, turns into a stronghold
called shame.

Meditating on false guilt builds strongholds

If we continue to think about our past failures, it will wear us down
spiritually, and the next thing the enemy aims at is getting the picture of
ourselves distorted. He wants us to look at our past failures so much that
we begin to see ourselves as failures!

Anybody who has been thinking about their past sins for long will begin
to see themselves as dirty sinners and failures. The complete opposite of
what they really are, providing they have repented of their sins and turned
to God!

Shame is one of those things that the Bible speaks of as an imagination
that must be cast down:

2 Corinthians 10:4-5, "(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal,
but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds;) Casting down
imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the
knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the
obedience of Christ."

An imagination is an image in your mind that is incorrect. If you see
yourself as a failure, when you're actually a blood-washed child of God...
you've got an imagination that needs to be dealt with!

Shame is very destructive to our relationship with God

There is a good reason Satan wants us to feel like failures and dirty
sinners. Feeling that way keeps us from confidently approaching God's
throne and having an intimate relationship with Him! The Bible tells us
that the blood of Jesus was shed so that we can confidently approach an
intimate relationship with our heavenly Father:

Hebrews 10:22, "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of
faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies
washed with pure water."

God wants us to draw near to Him with a clean conscience that has been
freed from dead works!

Hebrews 9:14, "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the
eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God?"

Even look at Paul, the chief of sinners, he even made it clear that he
was serving God from a clean conscience!

2 Timothy 1:3, "I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure
conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers
night and day."

Worship is an intimate way of expressing our relationship with God. The
Bible is clear that we should approach Him with a clean conscience that has
been purged from sin:

Hebrews 10:2, "For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because
that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of
sins."

Shame and guilt are based upon deception, which is the opposite of truth.
So how are we supposed to worship God in Spirit and truth, if there are
imaginations hanging around in our minds that are contrary to the truth?

John 4:24, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him
in spirit and in truth."

How do we defeat or overcome guilt and shame?

You need to stop thinking about your past failures. Are you ignoring
them? No! You are ignoring a lie, not the sin, because the sin has been
dealt with and washed away. Therefore, you are meditating on something that
no longer exists! If your sins are in the depths of the sea, then why are
you still thinking about them?

Micah 7:19, "...he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our
iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."

You need to stop focusing on the problem (which has been dealt with), and
begin to praise God for the solution to the problem, and think about how
you have been washed clean from those failures! Instead of meditating on a
lie, begin to meditate on the truth in God's Word concerning your past
failures. Here are some great verses to get you started:  Isaiah 1:18,
"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be
as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like
crimson, they shall be as wool."

1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins, and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness."

Psalms 103:12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he
removed our transgressions from us."

Titus 2:14, "Who gave Himself for us to redeem us from EVERY lawless
deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous
for good deeds." (NASB)

Ephesians 1:7, "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the
forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;" (The word
'riches' in the Greek here means abundance and fullness!)

Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in
Christ Jesus..."

Micah 7:19, "...he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our
iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."

Psalms 103:2-4, "Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his
benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with
lovingkindness and tender mercies;"Disassociate yourself from your past!

Why do you think God wanted us to be new creations? Because He did not
want your past to be a part of you anymore!

2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

Psalms 103:12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he
removed our transgressions from us."

Now that our past failures have been forgiven, we need to leave them
there and press forward towards the things God has for us:

Philippines 3:13, "...this one thing I do, forgetting those things which
are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before."

Not only are we supposed to forget our pasts, but God Himself has chosen
to completely forget our sins as well!

Hebrews 8:12, "For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their
sins and their iniquities will I remember no more."

Recently, the Lord showed me a beautiful revelation of the kind of
relationship that He wants with His children. If you wonder what kind of
relationship your heavenly Father wants to have with you, then you owe it
to yourself to read A love relationship with Jesus.