Howdy Guys and Gals!
I wanted to talk to you today about guilt and all that it encompasses. But first, I'd like to explain some things that some may not be familiar with.
The Law of God was first given to Moses so that the Jewish people would know when they sin and also what to do to enter God's presence after they have sinned. It is a very complex and codified law. Yet it can be summed up in four sentences which Jesus said to us. "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments depend the whole of the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 22:37-40. So now we know the whole basis under which the Law operates.
But who is under the Law? The Jewish people are under the Law! Those who are directly descended from Abraham, through Isaac, and through Jacob are the only people on Earth that are under the Law!
But what about the Gentiles? The Gentiles, or those peoples who are not of the Jewish people, are not under any law at all! 'Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants: one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves: she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free: she is our mother.' Galatians 4:21-26. So we see here that if a Gentile does want to be under the Law, then they would be slaves under the Law!
Is there a third category? Yes there is! Those people who have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and are under the Law of Grace! 'We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles; nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified. But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be! For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God." Galatians 2:15-19.
Why then the Law? The Law is there to show us our need for Jesus Christ and the Grace of God for we are unable to become righteous under the Law and Jesus is the only way to achieve righteousness in God's eyes by God's Grace through Faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. 'Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to who the promise had been made.' Galatians 3:19.
Okay, so Christians, having come from either Jewish or Gentile backgrounds are under Grace and not the Law. The Law then, was there to convict us of sin so that we might see our need for the Savior, Lord Jesus Christ. But once we have accepted Him into our lives, do we then live in freedom as He desires for us? Or are we still feeling the guilt from our past sins and even our current sins? We are to release that guilt once we are saved so that we can go on to be the light of the world for Jesus Christ!
'What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.' Romans 6:1-7.
So if we are dead to sin, then are we not also dead to the guilt of sin? Therefore sin and the guilt from sin should no longer have any control over our lives. So why then do we hold onto the guilt from our sin that has been forgiven by God. Maybe it is because we think that we still have to feel bad about how we have sinned against someone else or even God. This is not true! For if we have been forgiven by God, who is there to say that we have not been forgiven?
You are forgiven! 'As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.' Psalms 103:12. If our sin has been taken away, then why do we still operate as if we are still sinful in His eyes? Rejoice! For your sin is gone and is no more!
Start today in living your life without sin and show the world the light that is in you so that it may pierce the darkness of the world that is sin!
God bless you all this day!
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