No Guilt, No Shame, & No Longer Bound

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1

I want to speak directly to the person who is walking around carrying guilt and shame over something they did in their past.

The thing you keep replaying.

The thing you wish you could undo.

The thing you believe is so terrible that surely God could never forgive you for it.

Maybe you have even convinced yourself that you are too dirty, too broken, too far gone, or too unworthy to come to Christ.

I've been there!!!

And I'm here to tell you that is a lie. And it is a lie straight from the enemy.

In Christ Jesus, we are redeemed.

We are forgiven.

We are no longer condemned.

And we are no longer bound to the person we used to be.

I know this personally because I have had moments where I carried shame and guilt in my own heart over things I did in my past. And even though I knew that I had been forgiven, there were moments when the consequences of my decisions still reminded me of who I used to be.

And here is something we have to understand...

Forgiveness does not always eliminate consequences.

Sometimes we still have to walk through the consequences of decisions we made before Christ, and even decisions we make after coming to Christ.

Why?

Because being saved does not mean we will never fall again.

We still fall short.

We still wrestle with our flesh.

We still have areas in our hearts that God is working on.

But the difference is that we don’t stay down.

We repent.

We get back up.

We return to the Father.

We allow the Holy Spirit to renew our minds, examine our hearts, expose what is hidden within us, and continue the work of sanctification.

God doesn’t expose sin to shame us.

He exposes it so He can remove it.

And that is why I want to encourage you today…

Stop allowing the enemy to keep you bound to something Christ already set you free from.

If you have repented, if you have surrendered your life to Christ, and you are abiding in Him, you do not have to continue walking around as though you are condemned.

The enemy wants you to believe that your past disqualifies you from your future.

He wants you to believe that what you did is bigger than what Christ did.

He wants you to hide from God instead of running toward Him.

Don’t believe that lie.

Run to the Father.

Run to Jesus.

Bring the shame to Him.

Bring the guilt to Him.

Bring the broken pieces to Him.

Because there is no sin that is greater than the redemptive power of Jesus Christ when we genuinely repent and surrender.

But let me make something clear….

Grace is not permission to continue living in sin.

God loves us deeply, but He does not love our sin.

That is exactly why He calls us to repent.

Repentance means turning away.

It means we don’t just say, “God forgive me,” and then intentionally keep going back to the same thing without any desire to change.

We surrender.

We fight our flesh.

We renew our minds.

We get into the Word.

We pray.🧎🏽‍♀️

We allow the Holy Spirit to correct us.

And when we fall, we get back up.

Because this walk is a process.

And sometimes we want God to remove something from us instantly, but sanctification can take time.

God may have to deal with our pride.

Our jealousy.

Our envy.

Our gossip.

Our comparison.

Our unforgiveness.

Our lust.

Our anger.

Our selfishness.

Our greed.

Our worry.

Our desire to be seen.

Our desire to control everything.

And yes, sexual sin is sin…..but sexual sin is not the only sin we need to talk about.

Sometimes we are so focused on what somebody else is doing in their flesh that we fail to examine what is happening in our own hearts.

You can gossip and still need to repent.

You can be jealous and still need to repent.

You can envy somebody else’s life and still need to repent.

You can be prideful and still need to repent.

You can constantly compare yourself to other people and still need to repent.

Because God didn't make a mistake when He created you!

You can harbor unforgiveness and still need to repent.

You can worry constantly instead of trusting God and still need to repent.

Sin is sin.

And Jesus didn’t only come to deliver us from the sins that are visible to everybody else.

He came to transform our hearts.

Jesus even addressed the condition of our hearts when He taught about lust

(see Matthew 5:28)

The issue wasn’t merely the physical act, it was what was happening on the inside, that heart posture.

That should make all of us pause.

Because sometimes the sin nobody else can see is the sin God is asking us to surrender.

So don’t just clean up your behavior.

Ask God to clean up your heart.

Ask Him to reveal what is hidden.

Ask Him to show you the places where pride has taken root.

Ask Him to expose the things you’ve normalized in your heart.

Ask Him to renew your mind.

Ask Him to help you become more like Christ.

And when He reveals something?

Don’t run from Him. Run to Him.

You don’t have to live in guilt.

You don’t have to live in shame.

You don’t have to live under condemnation.

You are not who you used to be!! Say it and believe it!

(Read Ephesians 1)

In Christ, you have been redeemed.

In Christ, you have been forgiven.

In Christ, you have been given freedom.

And yes, there may be consequences from your past that you still have to walk through. There may be things that remind you of decisions you wish you could change.

But those consequences do not have the authority to redefine who God called you to be and who He said that you are!

Your past is not your identity.

Christ is.

So tell the enemy to get out of your way.

You don’t belong to shame anymore.

You don’t belong to guilt anymore.

You don’t belong to condemnation anymore.

You belong to Jesus.

Walk in freedom.

Walk in peace.

Walk in repentance.

Walk in obedience.

Walk in grace.

And when you fall?

Get back up.

Keep surrendering.

Keep allowing the Holy Spirit to work on you.

Keep letting God ring out the sin in your heart.

Because you haven’t arrived yet.

Neither have I.

But thank God, He isn’t finished with us yet.

Thank you Jesus!

No guilt.

No shame.

No longer bound.

We are free in Christ.

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:36

📝Study Scriptures:

“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

‭‭Colossians‬ ‭2‬:‭9‬-‭15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

https://bible.com/bible/111/col.2.9-15.NIV

“The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭103‬:‭8‬-‭14‬ ‭NIV‬‬

https://bible.com/bible/111/psa.103.8-14.NIV

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The Surrendered Walk

-Obedience Over Compromise❤️