Finally, I confessed all my sins to you
and stopped trying to hide my guilt.
I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.”
And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. Psalm 32:5
- Comment
- Reblog
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Lillie-Put 
I think guilt and shame are very different things. You can be guilty of a sin without feeling ashamed of what you did. You can also feel ashamed of something you did without actually being guilty of any sin. You can also be forgiven of a sin and still feel as if you need to keep asking for forgiveness even though the Bible says that God casts your sin away as far as the east is from the west. You might hear someone say God has forgiven them but they can’t forgive themselves. What the individual is communicating is really shame for a forgiven transgression. I think this is most common when we intentionally choose to commit a sin we have long been morally opposed to, or one that has repeatedly been reinforced as something we should not do by our parents. Guilt is about doing something illegal, sinful, or morally reprehensible. Shame is about how we feel about ourselves for real or perceived infractions. An individual can feel great shame over behavior that God has not called sin. Someone else has taught us that a behavior is wrong – maybe legalistic behaviors. Where one might see playing cards, dancing, kissing before marriage, consuming any amount of alcohol – whatever an individual has been taught is sinful or sinful by omission. Shame is about feeling as if you are a bad person instead of acknowledging that you did a bad thing, and it’s a terribly important distinction because God does not want us crippled by shame for forgiven sins and especially for perceived sin.
This is a great meditation on the question Janet. I agree with you. Christ came to deliver us from guilt and shame but the two things are not the same . While guilt may be washed away in a moment by the act of justification, shame is often more a healing of the emotions. I think it is a part of sanctification.