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| Photo cred: quotesgram.com |
“Lord, I’m feeling guilty, and I need you. I can barely write my failure because I feel so bad.”
Have you ever said unloving words that you regret? Then the guilt you feel after saying them, and you can’t erase them?
What is worse, I said the words to my most sensitive child, and I fear that the effect will be deep damage!
A sermon I heard the very next day (the timing of the Spirit!) was recorded in 1997, but totally fitting for me! He said, “Modern science and ‘progress’ cannot make the slightest advance in solving the real human problem--a dirty conscience.”
I have been working on memorizing Hebrews 9 for two weeks, and it is quite a passage! The richness of the old covenant, the sacrificial system and the tabernacle was all set up to ultimately prepare us for and point us to Christ.
Of the old covenant it says:
“the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper.” Hebrews 9.9
As my guilty conscience weighed me down more, I continued to confess to my journal:
“I can hardly bear to think of it now!...I try to pursue him in love, but my love gets so challenged so quickly!...Oh, knives to my heart! My guilt is too great. Please, please please forgive me Lord! How can I ever undo this?”
Interesting, how I can only memorize a few verses at a time! Because it causes me to slow down and really think on it: “not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper....” until verse 11 (ESV!):
“BUT [contrast!] when Christ appeared as high priest...”
There He is! Someone who can clear my guilty conscience! This is what I need to hear! I need a high priest, a mediator. Someone who can free me from that burden and wash my crimson stains.
“Out damn spot!” in the famous words of Lady Macbeth.How ironic to think that the stain on Lady Macbeth’s hands were blood, and yet it is also bloody hands that can wash out such guilt.
“What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus!”
“How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works...” Hebrews 9.14
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| Photo cred: ubdavid.org |
If you are like me, and find yourself feeling guilty after sinning, you may find yourself trying to run and hide from God. You may try to carry the guilt yourself or try to make it up somehow by doing better.
But, let us make a new habit of running TO God with our guilt. Let us look to Christ, who offered himself in our place for our sin, and trust in His finished work on the cross to bring us near to God and to purify our conscience.
If you are someone who does not feel a guilty conscience, it is possible that you are suppressing that through keeping busy, using substances, or ignoring guilt another way. In that case, I urge you also to be set free today by calling on the Name of Jesus and trusting Him to pay the penalty for you.
If you don’t feel guilty, it is possible that you are a righteous person, doing good works and feeling good about yourself. If you are not looking to Christ but looking to yourself for a clean conscience, you are also in need of freedom from “dead works”. I urge you, friend, to release your trust in your own righteous works to save you and rely instead on the work that Christ has already done to save you.
I want to make this song my regular prayer:
I lay my sins on Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God;
He bears them all, and frees us from the accursed load;
I bring my guilt to Jesus, to wash my crimson stains
White in His blood most precious, till not a stain remains.
[Listen to this version that I like, by Matt Foreman]
(Orignial hymn by Horatius Bonar in 1843: full lyrics here)
P.S. I did reconcile with my son and I know Christ is at work to purify and redeem us both! Pray for us when the Spirit brings us to mind.
