Tag Archive - Guilt

It’s Not Me!

April 21, 2011 in Daily Faith with 0 Comments

He was oppressed and afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth;

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

Isaiah 53:7 (NIV)

 

Have you ever been accused of something you didn’t do?

Most of us have at one time or another. The teacher got on to you for talking when it was the kid sitting behind you.  A brother or sister told your parents that you did something that they did. A co-worker said it was your fault their project wasn’t finished because they were covering up their mistakes. There are countless other examples.

The bottom line was that you were blamed for something you didn’t do.

I know from first hand experience that the natural response is to defend your self.  “It wasn’t me,” you cry.  “I didn’t do it!”  You want to do whatever you can to prove your innocence. To remain quiet is not an option. To stay calm is next to impossible.

 

Yet when Jesus stood before all of his accusers, he barely spoke. When crowds demanded His blood, he remained silent. And most of all He was innocent. His life was pure. Yet He allowed the accusations to stand.

Why would He do such a thing? How could He do such a thing?

It was not His innocence that was at stake that day, but our sin. For that day, He took our guilt and draped it over His shoulders. He did not say a word, because He was guilty. The accusations were true, because our sin became His. As it says in Isaiah 53:6, “the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

How could He do this? It was His love for us. A love so deep that even an innocent man could remain silent.

 

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The War is Over!

April 7, 2011 in Daily Faith with 0 Comments

Georg Gaertner, a young German man, found himself in North Africa in 1943. He was a part of the German Army’s Afrika Korps. He was captured by the British army at Tunis in 1943.He was handed over to the Americans along with thousands of other prisoners and was brought to prisoner of war camps in the United States. Georg was sent to Fort Deming, New Mexico.

In September of 1945, because he was afraid of being sent back to his hometown which was now under Soviet control, he slipped past a guard, lifted up the fence, and escaped from that prison camp. And he ran.

He started out working as a farm laborer. Because he was afraid of being captured, he was constantly on the move.

He became a tennis instructor. He had played tennis in Germany as a young man and was rather good.

He became a ski instructor in the Rocky Mountains. In fact, in 1952, he was part of the team that went into the Donner Pass. There was a train that had wrecked in there, and it was locked in because of the snow. The skiers went in and rescued some 200 people out of that train wreck.

He was continuously running, continuously trying to stay away from the authorities.

One day he came home fearful that he’d blown his cover: They’re going to know who I am, and so I’ve got to move again. He told his wife: “Pack it all up. We’ve got to move immediately.”

After 20 years of this, she said: “Wait a minute. I can’t take this any longer. What’s wrong with you? Why are we constantly moving like this?”

Georg sat down and he shared with her what he had never shared with anyone else: He was a prisoner of war, a man condemned. She looked at him and said: “Go to the office of immigration and naturalization. The war is over.”

Finally, Georg, who went by the name, Dennis Whiles, after 40 years of running, at 64 years of age, turned himself in to federal authorities. Instead of condemning him, they released him to live a free man.*

The war was finally over for Georg Gaertner. He no longer had anything or anyone to fear. The past was over. He now lived free.

Because of the Cross, our war is over. Jesus Christ won the victory over sin and death. If we trust in Christ, we have no thing or no one to fear. We can live in the freedom that God designed for His creation. We no longer live in condemnation for a life in the past. No longer do we have to live under guilt and shame. We are free to become the person God meant us to be, His child.

　

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. – Romans 8:1-2 (NIV)

*”Hitler’s Last Soldier in America,” by George Gaertner and Arnold Krammer.

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The Joy of Forgiveness

May 18, 2010 in Daily Faith with 0 Comments

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

According to an often told story, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series, once decided to play a practical joke on twelve of his friends. To each he sent an anonymous telegram that simply read, “Flee at once . . . all is discovered.”
Within twenty-four hours, all twelve had fled the country.   Evidently, they all had something to hide.

Most of us do have something to hide.  We have some secret we don’t want discovered?  We have regrets, real and imagined.  We’ve made bad choices.  We live hoping that all will never be discovered.  Guilt tugs at our souls, nags our minds and saps our spirits.  In fact, I’m convinced that most of us live lives robbed of peace and joy because of this.  What can we do?
There are just two answers.  One,  we can go on just as we’ve been doing.  Hoping that we can keep up appearances.  Hoping that no one will find out.  Letting our past drain our present and future of joy.  Or two, we can confess to God and receive His forgiveness. The first answer fails miserably, the second is our only hope.
God doesn’t want you to live in guilt and shame.  He doesn’t want your life empty of peace and joy.  He wants you to live in the joy of forgiveness.  He wants to free you from the chains of the past so that you can experience the fullness of His life today.

“If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. 9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.”
1 John 1:8-9 (NLT)

The List of the Cross

February 18, 2010 in General with 0 Comments

When Louis XII became king of France, he made a list of all those who had been his enemies and persecutors in the years before he obtained the throne. Before each of these names he placed a large black cross. When word of his act spread, those on the list quickly fled the country, fearing punishment or death.
When Louis XII heard of this, the king had them all sought out and brought back to the palace. He then told them that he had put a cross beside each name, not as a symbol of death, but of the cross of Christ. It would be a constant reminder and example for him to do as his Lord had done on the Cross, saying, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

The enemies of Louis XII fled from him because they saw the cross beside their names as a sign of death. However, the king put it there as a sign of forgiveness and life. They ran in terror from the very act that brought them life.

The same is true for us today. Many of us see the cross as punishment and death. We run from it because we think it means death. We think it means the end of our lives. However, through Christ, the cross has become a sign of forgiveness and life. God places a cross by the name of all who have faith in Christ, not as a sign of despair, but of hope and life.

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
Colossians 2:13–15 (NIV)