But I Still Feel Guilty

I John 3:20-24

I’ll probably never forget a lady telling me, “All you preachers do is make people feel guilty.” Apparently she missed the point of the sermon, That it is possible to have your guilt removed. She’d just received her degree in psychology from a “Christian” college, and was convinced that guilt was a terrible thing. It can be, but the sense of guilt can also cause a change of behavior. It is the awareness of guilt that causes a person to realize their need of a savior.

Romans 3:19 states that the law was to make people aware of their guilt. “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” The things they were doing were always wrong, they just weren’t aware of it. Christ died to take away the guilt, as Romans 3:25 makes clear. “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.”

As we see in I John 1:8-10, that guilt can only be removed when the sin is acknowledged and repented of. The popular psychology approach of denying responsibility by blaming others for our actions leaves one saddled with their guilt, and as the old saying goes, “There is nothing harder to live with than a guilty conscience.”

The human conscience is like a new nylon guitar string, constantly yielding to the pressures on it until it reaches its limit of elasticity. While the rest of the strings may stay in perfect tune, the new one is constantly sounding a discordant note. The problem will only be resolved by repeated retuning the string until it adjusts to the tension and ceases to go out of tune.
Because the conscience was adjusted to living in sin it sometimes has to be retuned to a guilt free state. A faulty measure of tuning will prolong the problem. Many churches and pastors set their own standards or traditions, leading to confusion about what is actually sin. The scribes and Pharisees were causing confusion about what was actually right or wrong because of their demands to obey tradition. As a result, things that were not wrong were severely rebuked or punished, while things that were forbidden by God were overlooked. Matthew 15:1-9 describes one of the times Jesus confronted them about this.

“Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?

For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. ” (Matthew 15:1-9)

As a result some people go through life haunted by a sense of guilt for something that was not wrong, or failing to confess sins they did commit. Other times people do not understand that God paid for all our sin, fearing that some sin after they received Christ wasn’t included. Satan accuses us before God night and day according to Revelation 12:10, and just as a defendant can be rattled by a vindictive prosecutor, Christians are sometimes rattled by Satan’s accusations. Fortunately, we have Jesus as our advocate, according to I John 2:1-2, and the accusations don’t disturb him. He has proof the debt was already paid.

“For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” (I John 3:20-22)

If we’ve confessed our sin, trusting Christ, we have been forgiven, whether we feel like it or not. Our feelings do not control God. When we are not sure of God’s love, we tend to hold back. I John 4:18-19 declares, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us.” If we do not have that guilty conscience however, we are assured of his love freely, and begin to love in return. As a result of obedience, God is free to give us what we ask for as John 14:21 states. “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” Love is shown differently to the obedient child than to the disobedient one. John reviews the two specific commands for Christians.

“And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.” (I John 3:23-24)