From Guilt to Grace
Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace. Psalm 86:6
How easy it is to to say (with a guilty conscience), “I am giving up tortilla chips as of this moment,” when the moment is right after finishing a whole bowl of them.
It’s easy to be so disgusted with ourselves for a repeated sin in the moment that we swear we will never do this thing again. We forget that we have made the same promise hundreds of times before!
It seems rational to think, “I just won’t put myself in that position again,” or “go out with that person who is such a bad influence,” until they call and we don’t know how to say we really don’t want to be with them. So we go.
How many ways do we sabotage our own standing before God by failing to exercise self-control so that we fall into the same trap of doing the same thing, knowing it will bring the same results?
This is where the guilt begins.
Though it is not sinful to eat tortilla chips, a lack of self-control in any area is something we need to think about and deal with to live a life pleasing to the Lord. How is a Christian to deal with the sin that keeps her feeling guilty rather than bold and busy for the Lord?
Repentance.
Often we are quick to recognize the conviction of sin. We acknowledge we have a problem with certain temptations or desires that we seem to give into frequently or at least repeatedly. We are even willing to confess these issues as areas we need to “work on.” We may be remorseful, but, we don’t repent.
Grace
When we repent we don’t just acknowledge something as sin but tell God we see that our behaviors or thoughts do not line up with His and we turn from them. We allow the conviction of the Holy Spirit to penetrate our hearts and not just our minds. By God’s grace, when the temptation arises, we turn from it, literally if necessary.
- Turn from our transgressions, lest iniquity be our ruin. Ezekiel 18:30b
- Turn our eyes from looking at worthless things. Psalm 119:37
- Turn away from evil ways and evil things. Proverbs 3:7; Jeremiah 26:3
- Turn from vain things to the living God. Acts 14:15
- Turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God. Acts 26:18
One of the victories for the Christian is to master sin by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit so that our God given work will produce fruit, the fruit of repentance. (Matthew 3:8)
When we acknowledge sin we feel guilty. Guilt bears no fruit.
When we repent of sin we change by God’s grace, we bear fruit.
Rather than just acknowledging sin and feeling awful, let’s do something different. Repent and bear fruit, go from guilt to grace.