Are you living with blame… or shame… or both? Is your past continually slapping you in your face? Are you a candidate for the old sing-song rhyme: ‘nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go eat worms’? Granted, not an appetizing rhyme but one that totally dates me. The point in this – how do you see yourself? Are you still living in your past? Do you still view yourself as basically a wretch – one saved by Grace but still a wretch? Wrong!
Where do you think these thoughts are coming from? Do you honestly believe that the Lord would go through all He did and yet still continues to be our High Priest, our Savior, but view His people with disdain? And where do you think that thought comes from? Precisely. Our great enemy. Can you define our enemy? Scripture does!
“I am the Door; anyone who enters through Me will be saved [and will live forever], and will go in and out [freely], and find pasture (spiritual security). The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows].” [John 10:9-10]
Door: Jesus, saved. Steal, kill, destroy: devil/satan. While I know this answers the question… it’s difficult to act on who we become:
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life].” [2 Corinthians 5:17]
But… But… But… I know who I am, what I did… True. But it’s also not news to the Lord. He was with you when you did/said what you did. YET He chooses to save us, to give us new, eternal life and to designate that we now are a new creature and the old things have passed away and the new things have come. Caveat: WE have to act on this. The Lord has provided but we do the accepting. When we come to Him, repentant of those acts and words, He forgives and casts those sins as far away as possible (Psalms 103:1). They no longer exist. So why are we trying to dredge them up, to live in our past? There’s no way that we can undo what we did/said, we will always reap what we sow, but that’s a ‘then’ and we should be living in a ‘now’.
As that new creature made by the Lord through our coming to Him and asking Him to be our Lord, WE need to put on the new man:
“… regarding your previous way of life, you put off your old self [completely discard your former nature], which is being corrupted through deceitful desires, and be continually renewed in the spirit of your mind [having a fresh, untarnished mental and spiritual attitude], and put on the new self [the regenerated and renewed nature], created in God’s image, [godlike] in the righteousness and holiness of the truth [living in a way that expresses to God your gratitude for your salvation]. Therefore, rejecting all falsehood [whether lying, defrauding, telling half-truths, spreading rumors, any such as these], speak truth each one with his neighbor, for we are all parts of one another [and we are all parts of the body of Christ].”
[Ephesians 4: 22-25]
The final argument I have for NOT accepting the devil’s description of us as being of blame and shame, I give you 1 John 1:9
“If we [freely] admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just [true to His own nature and promises], and will forgive our sins and cleanse us continually from all unrighteousness [our wrongdoing, everything not in conformity with His will and purpose].”
And this is true for repeated sins, not license, but until we gain control and overcome. Again, He gives everything we need to live the abundant life. We also have all the scriptures necessary to refute satan (which is how Jesus defeated the devil in the desert – Matthew 4:1-8. Never, never, never buy into the devil’s lies… especially about who you are, Whose you are, and who you are becoming! The Lord’s not finished with us/you yet. We may have come as a wretch, just as we were… we leave as a new creature, created in Christ Jesus. Therefore… no blame… no shame.
