Do you feel guilty because you fell for temptation again?

The feeling of guilt is the worst. Most Christians don't realize that guilt plays a big role in their cycle of sin. Unfortunately, it's not a positive role.

God is on your side in your fight against sin; the guilt is not.

Only after I found that the guilt was not helping me fight against sin, I started to see freedom. The temptations lost their power. My relationship with God was restored.

You can experience the same!

The agenda of guilt is to bring you to the end of yourself

If you embrace the message of guilt to its fullness you'll have no more motivation to fight.

After promising myself not to make a compromise I failed. I was flooded with guilt knowing there was nothing I could do to change what I did. I focused on the feeling of guilt asking myself what would happen if I embraced it fully.

At that moment I knew, the fullness of guilt would bring me to the place of giving up.

The fullness of guilt does not aim to set you free but to condemn you.

Guilt tells you:

• "You can't change what you've done!"

• "You should be ashamed of yourself!"

• "You don't have hope to overcome this sin!"

The first time the guilt appeared in the Bible was when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. The first feeling that came to them was shame.

At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. (Genesis 3:7, NLT)

The shame leads to a desire to hide. Then comes the fear of the consequences of sin. Adam and Eve hid themselves from God because of fear.

He replied, "I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked." (Genesis 3:10, NLT)

Guilt doesn't encourage you to walk away from sin. It leads to fear and shame. As a result, there's a natural desire to cover the negative emotions, run and hide.

Guilt doesn't aim to set you free or encourage you to walk away from sin but to know you've messed up.

How does the sense of guilt keep you stuck in the cycle of sin?

Guilt is the root cause of your inability to stop the cycle of sin.

When I was 6 years old, I was playing in the back garden. There my dad had his workshop. It was locked and I wasn't allowed to play in there. However, I was fascinated by the massive metal key in the keyhole. I thought I'd try to unlock the door to see what's inside.

After a few seconds, I felt the key mechanism unlock the door. I opened the door slightly and the gust of cool air smelling like dampness and sawdust greeted me. After a small disappointment that I couldn't see inside because of the darkness, I shut the door.

Then I tried to lock the door to hide the evidence of my curiosity.

"Uh, oh!..", I thought failing to lock it.

A feeling of concern came over me like a wave but I decided to be patient and try again. I opened the door to expose the lock to work out how it functions. After some effort, I made the big square metal piece come out.

The relief was short-lived. I couldn't get it back inside.

I knew that the deadbolt had to be inside, otherwise I would not be able to close the door.

An idea came to my mind. I picked up a hammer and hammered the deadbolt inside. Then I closed the door. I thought my dad would think he forgot to lock the door.

The next day over the dinner, he asked me who hammered the deadlock into the lock of his workshop. I lied saying, "I don't know."

Shame and fear that come from the sense of guilt lead you to hide and cover sin. Since there's a clear sense of not being right, the temptation to do another sin seems like the best solution. Sin covers another sin making everything worse.

The automatic response to cover guilt-produced feelings of shame and fear with sin is to cover them another sin is what keeps your bad cycle in motion.

How do you balance the guilt to help you in your fight?

The point is not to remove any sense of guilt but to stop it from running too far.

When we make a mistake, guilt helps us to realize the action was wrong. The guilt is not bad in itself. It helps us to recognize sin.

The problem is when we get a drop of guilt, we dive into the pool of shame, fear and condemnation. Even before God says anything, we already proclaim ourselves a judgment. No wonder after that we can't deal with the amount of shame.

When you feel a sense of guilt, admit to yourself and God, "that was wrong, I regret doing it."

Then say sorry to God, yourself, or someone you wronged and move on. You can then go to God.

Let the wicked abandon his way, And the unrighteous person his thoughts; And let him return to the Lord, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:7, NASB, emphasis mine)

You can move on from the guilt because:

• Guilt separates you from God who gives you freedom through mercy;

• You're not aiming to get permission to sin, but to be free from it so don't allow guilt to grow;

• God knows our weaknesses;

• God forgives.

What would have happened if Adam and Eve realized they did wrong and came to God first? We probably would've read a different story. Yet, it's a speculation.

What is not speculation is that if I came to my dad with sincere regret and confessed what I did to the lock, he would have forgiven me. Of course, I didn't want to do it again.

Let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:22, NLT)

The cycle of sin is powered by shame and fear that stem from guilt. If you take the guilt as a realization of your wrong action and come to God you're walking towards freedom. If you embrace guilt like your best friend the cycle of sin will never stop spinning and ruining your life.

Last thoughts

You will not overcome sin if you embrace guilt. You will overcome it, if you embrace God, His mercy and forgiveness. The more aware of your right standing with God, the more freedom you will see in your life.

Remember, if you could overcome sin with your power, Jesus wouldn't have to come. Jesus came to set you free. He's not waiting for you to become right on your terms before you can come to Him.

He paid for your freedom.

He wants you to draw near to Him, not far away.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! It means a lot to me!

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