Guilt and shame are two different things. Guilt is all about what you’ve done, but Shame goes much deeper because it is all about who you are. Shame involves self-loathing and self rejection. It is all enveloping. When you walk in shame there is a deep sense of disqualification and personal worthlessness. Condemnation carries both guilt and shame, but again, shame is much deeper and much more devastating, because it’s all about who you are as a person, not just behavior. A person can get set free from guilt and yet carry a sense of shame for years and decades feeling that there’s something wrong with them; not just what they did but that there’s something about them that is spoiled, and that they are somehow disqualified from ever completely fulfilling God’s purposes for them. Even though you may believe you are forgiven, shame carries the sense that you are marked, or openly marred forever. God hates our sin, not just because He is Holy, but because He loves us so, and He hates what sin does to us. He hates that we carry shame, because He knows how it devastates us mentally and emotionally, and how it affects our ability to walk in faith. Shame makes us feel to dirty to believe God for extravagant favor. The gospel; that is the good news, is that Jesus didn’t just die for our sin, He also died for our shame. He took our sin on Himself, and all of our guilt and shame.
Heb.12:1-2, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Notice something very important in these two verses. It says that for the joy set before him Jesus despised the shame. Could it be that one of the things that means is that Jesus, who took our shame, despises how shame makes human beings feel, and how destructive it is in our lives. He felt on the Cross our collective shame and He hated it, and how it makes the people He came to rescue and died for people feel. I believe He despises how the enemy destroys us through shame, and part of the joy set before Him was that He knew through His sacrifice we wouldn’t have to live under the destructive yoke of shame anymore. Think through what I just said, in light of what it says about Jesus’s attitude toward shame. He doesn’t want you to walk around in shame. He despises shame. He hates shame and what it does to us. The enemy deceives us into thinking that we deserve do carry round shame, and somehow it is proof to us and to God that we are really, really get it about our badness and are really, really sorry for who we are and what we’ve done. The next time you get hit with the feelings of shame stop and remember that this can’t be from God because He despises shame, and therefore it can’t be His will for us to carry around something He despises. If you were refuse the thoughts of shame, in light of the fact it is not God’s will for you to ever think those thoughts again, the feelings of shame will eventually go away. Remember our emotions are simply a reflection of what our mind is set on.
